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EDITED BY 



HORACE E. SCUDDER. 



^Hmcrican ComtiiontDcaltljief 



MICHIGAN 



A HISTORY OF GOVERNMENTS 



THOMAS McINTYRE COOLEY 



WITH A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER BY CHARLES MOORB 




BOSTON 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

New York: 85 Fifth Avenue 

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1905 






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Copyright, 1885, 
By THOMAS M. COOLET. 

Copyright, 1905, 
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 



All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A'. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 



PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION. 



DuEiNG the quarter of a century since Judge 
Cooley completed this history of Michigan, stu- 
dents have given much attention to the early his- 
tory of the Northwest. Although a large mass of 
details has been gathered to enrich the story, little 
has been discovered to change the general outlines 
as herein sketched. We now know that to Jean 
Nicolet's adventurous voyage in 1634 is due the 
discovery of the Straits of Mackinaw and Lake 
Michigan; and that Grosseilliers and Radisson 
dispute with Father Mesnard the title of discov- 
erers of Lake Superior ; but beyond the mention 
of these names there is nothing which demands 
the attention of the reviser. 

Advantage has been taken of the opportunity 
now presented to extend the record of the State, 
by means of a supplementary chapter covering the 
most important events in the history of Michigan 



VI PREFACE 

during the last part of the nineteenth century, 
and setting forth the conditions that prevail at the 
opening of the twentieth century. 

Charles Moore. 
Detroit, January, 1905. 



PREFACE. 



The changes of sovereign as well as of subordi- 
nate jurisdiction have been greater in Michigan 
than in any other part of the American Union. 
France, Great Britain, and the United States have 
successively had dominion over it, and under the 
United States it was part of the Northwest Terri- 
tory and of the Territory of Indiana before it be- 
came the Territory of Michigan. As Michigan 
Territory it passed through all the grades of 
subordinate jurisdiction, and the circumstances 
attending its admission to the Union made its his- 
tory at that period quite unique. Altogether it 
seemed appropriate that in the series of American 
Commonwealths the history of Michigan should 
be sketched as a history of governments ; but this 
would be incomplete without a summary view of 
the relations of States to the Union at the time 
Michigan was received into it, or without some 



Till PREFACE. 

notice of the remarkable changes which have been 
going on since that time, and which have so 
greatly affected constitutional questions and the 
political habits of mind and tendencies of the 
American people. It was also thought proper to 
present the financial history of the State with 
some fullness, because it was believed to inculcate 
a lesson of more than local importance. But no 
attempt has been made to give the annals of the 
State as a substitute for other histories, nor, with 
the field so well occupied as it now is with Judge 
Campbell's Political History, was any such attempt 
thought desirable. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. PAGB 

Michigan is explored, and Missions and Trading- 
Posts ESTABLISHED 1 

CHAPTER II. 

Detroit is founded, and at length surrendered to 
England 16 

CHAPTER III. 

Pontiac's Vain Struggle for the Homes op his Peo- 
ple 40 

CHAPTER IV. 
A Decade of Military Absolutism 66 

CHAPTER V. 
The Northwest conquered for the American Union 79 

CHAPTER VI. 

Great Britain reluctantly surrenders the North- 
west 105 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Foundations of a Free State are laid in the 
Northwest 120 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Michigan becomes a Territory and is given Rulers 140 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PAOB 

War, AND""tHE Conquest and Reconqoest of Michi- 
gan 163 

CHAPTER X. 
The Beginnings of Active American Settlement . 189 

CHAPTER XL 
The Territory advances to the Dignity of a State 205 

CHAPTER XII. 
The State and its Elements 232 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Money is made abundant in the New State . . . 254 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The State enters upon Internal Improvements . . 279 

CHAPTER XV. 
Economy, Recuperation, and Progress 294 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The State provides for Universal Education . . 306 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The War in Defense of the Union 330 

CHAPTER XVIIL 
The New State and the Union 344 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Michigan en the Twentieth Century 372 



MICHIGAN 



MICHIGAN : 

A HISTORY OF GOVERNMENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

MICHIGAN IS EXPLORED, AND MISSIONS AND 
TRADING POSTS ESTABLISHED. 

It was between the great lakes that the west- 
ern currents of French and English colonization, 
starting from distant points upon the St. Law- 
rence and along the Atlantic, after a century and 
a half of unfriendly rivalry, with occasional bloody 
and devastating wars, met at last and blended in 
a peaceful and prosperous commonwealth. 

Europe was dazzled by the discovery of a new 
world, and every maritime nation hastened to 
share with Spain the fame to be won in adventu- 
rous exploration. But in colonization Spain was 
long without a rival. Attracted by the amazing 
wealth of tropical production, but far more by 
the inexhaustible mines of precious metals of 
which fame brought such wondrous reports from 
the interior, that country was not long in seizing 
1 



2 MICHIGAN. 

and occupying the Antilles and the mainland 
from Mexico to Peru, and the Spanish crown 
could boast possessions in America of which Rome 
would have been proud in the height of her su- 
premacy. Portugal, a little later, had obtained a 
foothold in Brazil ; but it was some time before 
any people or any ruler in Northern Europe ap- 
peared to take in the full significance of Ameri- 
can discovery, or seemed to appreciate the great 
fact that a vast and fertile continent, whose possi- 
bilities for humanity were beyond calculation, was 
now offered for the acceptance of European civil- 
ization. For more than a century after the dis- 
covery by Columbus, the attention of the people 
of England was so far absorbed by the polemical 
controversies and the bitter political contests at- 
tendant upon a change in the state religion, that 
the mysterious continent across the ocean ex- 
cited only occasional and transitory interest. And 
France, which then, in rivalry with England, was 
preparing to contest the claim of Spain to the 
leadership of the world, contented herself for a 
long time with a lion's share in the harvests 
which hardy fishermen were gathering on the 
banks of Newfoundland, and with voyages of ad- 
venture and exploration upon the bay and the 
river St. Lawrence, through which it was hoped 
there might be found an avenue for trade with the 
Indies. Roberval and Jacques Cartier attempted 
a colony at Cape Roque in 1542, but it failed to 



THE FRENCH IN CANADA. 3 

take root ; La Roche with forty transported con- 
victs made a like attempt on Sable Island in 1598, 
but took off five years later all whom death had 
not already removed ; and De Monts, in 1604, 
made a settlement on an island near the mouth 
of the St. Croix, which the next year he aban- 
doned for Port Royal, and Port Royal in its turn 
was abandoned in 1607 when the fur monopoly, 
which had been granted to De Monts, was taken 
away. It was Samuel de Cham plain who was the 
father of New France ; and by him, at Quebec, 
the first permanent settlement was made the year 
following the planting of the English colony at 
Jamestown. Other points were soon occupied, of 
which Montreal was the most important. 

The primary objects of French adventure in 
Canada were profitable trade with the savages 
and their conversion to the true faith of Christ. 
Every company of adventurers had its priests, 
and the eagerness of the trader for gain was more 
than equaled by the self-sacrificing zeal of the 
missionary of the cross. Champlain himself was 
a sincere and devoted son of the Church ; and 
while he endeavored to foster and advance the 
fur trade, he gave his best energies to establish- 
ing and maintaining missions among the Indians, 
and to protecting against their enemies the tribes 
which submitted to his guidance, and tacitly ac- 
knowledged the French supremacy. In 1615 he 
visited the shore of Lake Huron, where for the 



4 MICHIGAN. 

powerful tribe of that name he established a mis- 
sion of the R^collets, intended by him for a cen- 
tre of French influence, and of hostility to the 
Iroquois Confederacy, which he had early encoun- 
tered in battle near the lake afterwards named 
for him. 

The history of New France from this time to 
the end of the seventeenth century is a history 
of one long struggle with the Dutch and English 
at Albany and New York for the good will and 
trade of the Indians, in which the Iroquois in 
general antagonized the French, and the Hurons, 
with the Algonquin tribes, were their firm friends 
and supporters. But the French were unable to 
protect their allies against the proud and fierce 
confederacy, and the Hurons were driven from 
their ancient home and took up their abode at 
Michilimackinac, where they were joined by the 
Ottawas. But at Michilimackinac they were 
again assailed by their old enemies, and fled in 
terror before them to the country beyond Lake 
Superior, only to come there into conflict with 
the Illinois, who drove them on to the Mississippi. 
But there they encountered the Sioux, an enemy 
not less fierce or formidable than the Iroquois, 
and finding neither peace nor safety elsewhere, 
they returned to the Straits of Michilimackinac, 
and there, in 1671, Father Jacques Marquette 
founded a mission for them. 

The Jesuits took early possession of the mis- 



THE POLICY OF THE JESUITS. 5 

sions in New France, and members of that order 
devoted themselves to the conversion of the In- 
dians with a zeal that spared no endeavor and 
no artifice, shrank from no privation, quailed be- 
fore no danger, and was fully in accord with the 
reUgious spirit of the day, which could persecute 
to the death, or submit to martyrdom at the hands 
of others, with undoubting confidence in either 
case that Heaven approved the cruelty or the sac- 
rifice. But nothing in the policy of the order 
favored colonization from Europe ; the fathers had 
come into the wilderness as apostles to the In- 
dians, and it was no part of their mission to peo- 
ple America from France. On the contrary, their 
mission was to bring the religion of the cross to 
the people by whom Amei'ica was already pos- 
sessed. New colonies must bring with them the 
vices of civilized life ; and the savage nature 
would be quite certain to add these to such as al- 
ready belonged to it. A French settlement must, 
therefore, to some extent be inimical to the suc- 
cess of a mission ; and in so far as the colonists 
failed to observe the sacred precepts of the relig- 
ion they professed, their proximity would tend to 
bring religion into contempt in savage eyes, and 
greatly to increase the labors and perplexities of 
religious teachers. 

But the policy of the fur traders was scarcely 
less unfriendly to colonization than was that of 
the Jesuits. Monopolies in the fur trade were 



6 MICHIGAN. 

granted from the very first, and though condi- 
tions were attached to the grants which required 
the settlement of colonists within territory indi- 
cated, it was not to be expected that attention 
would be given to the conditions any farther than 
it should be compelled. The grants were made 
and received for the profit of the grantees, and as 
their gains were to be gathered in the wilder- 
ness, their interest was to preserve the forests, not 
to destroy them. The conditions for colonization 
never had more than nominal fulfillment until set- 
tlement began in earnest upon the rock of Que- 
bec. Even then the earnestness was but partial, 
for most of those who were brought over came 
for hire, and not in pursuance of any deliberate 
choice to exchange their native country for a home 
in the new world. Finding everything in New 
France given over to monopoly, these men either 
became irregular traders, or took up a roving and 
lawless life among the Indians, constituting that 
peculiar class of men known as coureurs de bois, 
whose ambition was fully satisfied if by gun and 
trap they were able to provide for the limited 
wants of a life of careless indolence. In 1637, 
when Richelieu was at the head of affairs, an 
effort was made in the direction of colonization 
which seemed to promise great results. Previous 
grants of monopoly were annulled, and a company 
of a hundred associates was formed, with Riche- 
lieu at its head, to which was granted a perma- 



SCHEMES FOR COLONIZATION. 7. 

nent monopoly of the trade in furs, skins, and 
leather, and a monopoly for fifteen years of tlie 
whole colonial trade, by land and sea, with the 
exception of the cod and whale fisheries, which 
were left free. The scope of the grant embraced 
the whole of New France, from Florida to the 
Arctic circle, and on its part the company under- 
took to convey to New France within the next 
year two or three hundred men of various trades, 
and before the year 1643 to increase the number 
to four thousand, lodging and supporting them 
for three years, and then giving them for their 
maintenance lands ready for cultivation. In an- 
other age and under other circumstances this un- 
dertaking might have borne fruit; but bigotry 
was then dominant and unrelenting in France, 
and it would neither tolerate a heretic at home, 
nor permit him to become the means of extend- 
ing the glory and power of his native land in the 
distant wilderness. Every settler was, therefore, 
required to be a Catholic, and for every settle- 
ment at least three ecclesiastics must be provided. 
The scheme was doomed by its very conditions, 
for the French nature is little disposed to expa- 
triation, and the class of the people to whom per- 
secution had made emigration a temptation was 
vigorously excluded from the offer the associates 
were permitted to make. The company was not 
prosperous, and in 1663 it was dissolved. 

But the dissolution of this company did not 



8 MICHIGAN. 

result in freedom to trade. The next year the 
French West India Company was formed, to which 
a monopoly still more extensive was granted ; but 
this also was not prosperous, and in 1674 its priv- 
ileges, with some reservations, were surrendered. 
Other grants of monopoly followed in succession, 
the last expiring in 1731 ; and while they had 
the effect to prevent immigration and settlement, 
they also tended to paralyze trade of every sort, to 
check enterprise, and to incline the lower classes 
to prefer a life of slothful ease and independence 
in the woods to one of unprofitable service for the 
monopolists. 

Had trade been free there would still have been 
serious impediments to settlement in New France. 
Among the chief of these was the complicated 
despotism of the government. No English colony 
had anything similar, and none would have toler- 
ated it. First of its officers was the governor- 
general, usually a man of noble birth, and nomi- 
nally the king's immediate representative. Then 
there was the intendant, who was the king's spy 
upon the governor-general, possessed of large in- 
dependent judicial powers, and expected to re- 
port fully and frequently, as well as secretly, to 
the minister. He judged all the king's causes, 
and might create inferior courts. Commonly, 
the governor-general and the intendant were at 
loggerheads, and their correspondence with the 
minister was burdened with mutual complaints. 



N 



ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNMENT. 9 

There was also a Superior Council, composed of the 
governor-general, the intendant, and the bishop, 
which constituted the legislative authority. The 
Council had an attorney -general, a secretary, 
and attendant officers, but many times the dis- 
putes of the governor and the intendant in regard 
to their respective powers and privileges made the 
meetings a scene of disorder, or prevented their 
being held. The Jesuits were also a power in 
the colony, which, in the pursuit of its policy, 
bent its will to no other except when compelled 
by a necessity which was known to be irresistible. 
And the king of France wanted no self-govern- 
ment in America. When Frontenac in 1672 as- 
sembled the people of Quebec, administered the 
oath of allegiance, prescribed for them a form of 
municipal government, and reported the facts to 
the king, the minister, Colbert, responded : " Your 
assembling the inhabitants to take the oath of 
fidelity, and your division of them into three es- 
tates, may have had a good effect for the moment ; 
but it is well for you to observe that you are 
always to follow, in the government of Canada, 
the forms in use here ; and since our kings have 
long regarded it as good for their service not to 
convoke the states of the kingdom, in order, per- 
haps, to abolish insensibly this ancient usage, you 
on your part should very rarely, or, to speak more 
correctly, never give a corporate form to the in- 
habitants of Canada. You should even, as the 



10 MICHIGAN. 

colony strengthens, suppress gradually the office of 
the syndic who presents petitions in the name 
of the inhabitants ; for it is well that each should 
speak for himself and none for all.''^ It was not 
by such a policy that a power was to be created 
in New France which could compete successfully 
in the long race for wealth and power with 
the English colonies. The matchless skill and 
prowess of Frontenac for a time made New France 
preeminent in Indian councils, and humbled and 
half annihilated the Iroquois Confederacy ; but 
Frontenac in 1698 rested from his long struggles 
with Iroquois and with Jesuit, and he had no suc- 
cessor who was equal to his responsibilities, or 
worthy to wear his honors. 

Before the opening of the eighteenth century 
the shores of the great lakes had been well ex- 
plored by the fur traders and the priests, and im- 
portant stations had been established, which were 
at once missions and trading posts. So early as 
1641 the Jesuit fathers Raymbault and Jogues 
had visited the Sault Ste. Marie and had estab- 
lished a mission there for the Chippewas, but the 
sickness and death of Raymbault caused its early 
abandonment. The position was too important to 
permit of its being permanently given up, and 
Father Marquette was sent there in the spring of 
1668, and renewing the mission, he founded there 
the first permanent settlement in Michigan. This 
1 Parkman's Frontenac, p. 20. 



FATHER MARQUETTE. 11 

illustrious man had come to Canada in 1666, in 
the twenty-ninth year of his age, to devote his 
life to mission work, and had received with en- 
thusiasm the order to repair to the upper lakes. 
In the following year he was joined at the Sault 
by Father Dablon, to whom he left the work at 
that place, while he repaired to a new field of 
labor with the Hurons, then west of Lake Supe- 
rior, When in 1670 the Hurons fled before their 
new enemies the Sioux, Father Marquette cast his 
lot with them, and in the following year gathered 
them about him at the Straits of Michilimackinac. 
Michilimackinac, he says, "is the key, and, as it 
were, the gate, for all the tribes from the south, 
as the Sault is for those of the north, there being 
in this section of the country only these two pas- 
sages by water; for a great number of nations 
have to go by one or other of these channels 
in order to reach the French settlements. This 
presents a peculiarly favorable opportunity, both 
for instructing those who pass here, and also for 
obtaining easy access and conveyance to their 
places of abode." He adds further that the place 
is " ' the home of the fishes.' Elsewhere, although 
they exist in large numbers, it is not properly 
their ' home,' which is in the neighborhood of 
Michilimackinac. It is this attraction which has 
heretofore drawn to a point so advantageous the 
greater part of the savages in this country, driven 
away by fear of the Iroquois." 



12 MICHIGAN. 

The mission now established by Fatlier Mar- 
quette was located on the north side of the Straits, 
and was named by him for St. Ignatius. The 
Hurons and Ottawas, as well as fragments of other 
tribes, had villages in the vicinity ; and in admin- 
istering to their wants and baptizing their children 
Father Marquette and his associate, Nouvel, found, 
as he informs us, " consolation which God sends 
us, which makes us esteem our life more happy as 
it is more wretched." 

But attractive as were to him the place and the 
duty, Father Marquette was fired with zeal for 
more dangerous and venturesome missions, and 
was ready, as he writes Father Dablon, to leave 
his charge in tlxe hands of another missionary, in 
order to seek new nations towards the South Sea, 
and to become their teacher. Accordingly, when 
Joliet was sent out to explore the Mississippi, 
Marquette had orders to accompany him, and he 
expresses himself as " enraptured at this good 
news," which put him under the " happy neces- 
sity " of exposing his life for the salvation of the 
nations on the Mississippi, and particularly for 
the Illinois, who had entreated him when on Lake 
Superior " to carry the word of God to their 
country." 

The parties started on their mission of explora- 
tion May 17, 1673, and proceeding by way of 
Green Bay, and the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, in 
a month had reached the Mississippi, which they 



DEATH OF MARQUETTE. 13 

followed as far down as the Arkansas. Returning 
tliey ascended the Illinois, crossed to Lake Michi- 
gan at the site of what is now Chicago, and then 
coasted the western shore of that lake to Green 
Bay, which they reached in September. Here 
they separated, and Joliet returned to Quebec. 
In the fall of the following year Marquette started 
to fulfill his desire to establish a mission among 
the Illinois, but his health failed him, and he 
spent the winter upon the Chicago River. In the 
spring he proceeded to his destination and began 
his labors, but continuing to grow feeble in health, 
and fearing that his end was approaching, he sor- 
rowfully turned his face again to the north, in the 
hope that his strength might be sufficient to 
enable him once more to reach the mission he had 
founded at Michilimackinac, and to worship in the 
midst of his converts in the chapel of St. Igna- 
tius. But the will of Providence was otherwise. 
Coasting along the eastern shore of Lake Michi- 
gan, he landed for brief rest and for worship near 
the mouth of the river which has since been 
named for him, and there, after a few hours' delay 
and almost without warning, he passed peacefully 
and quietly to his eternal rest. He was buried on 
the spot by his sorrowful companions, but two 
years later a party of his Indian converts removed 
the body to the place of repose he would have 
chosen for himself, beneath the chapel which 
overlooked the Straits of Michilimackinac. 



14 MICHIGAN. 

From tlie time of the founding of the mission 
on the Straits, that place became a point of resort 
for the fur traders of Quebec and Montreal, and 
a point of competition with the English located 
on the shores of Hudson Bay, and the merchants 
at Albany. It is not known when Michilimacki- 
nac became a military post ; we have incidental 
mention of it by travelers from time to time ; La 
Salle, in the Griffon, the first vessel to plough the 
waters above Niagara, passed it in 1679, and in 
1688 Baron La Hontan visited and described it. 
La Motte Cadillac was here in command of the 
post in 1695, and he says of it that " this village 
is one of the largest in all Canada." The gar- 
rison consisted. of about two hundred men, and 
savages to the number of six or seven thousand 
souls lived in the vicinity, by whom sufficient 
corn was produced for both the French and them- 
selves. But the capture of the Hudson Bay sta- 
tions by the French in 1697, and the founding 
of Detroit in 1701, deprived Michilimackinac of 
much of its importance, and in 1705 the Jesuits 
who were stationed there, discouraged by the op- 
position at Detroit, burned down their chapel and 
their school building, and took up their departure 
for Quebec. A few traders and many Indians 
continued to reside there, and Father Marest soon 
came to care for their spiritual needs, and re- 
mained there until the post was reestablished, but 
on the south side of the Straits, in 1714. 



MARLY SETTLEMENTS. 15 

The importance of the Sault Ste. Marie was 
greatly diminished by the mission of Michilimack- 
inac, but the Chippewas, a fierce and warlike peo- 
ple, had a village there, and the French govern- 
ment deemed it the suitable point for convening 
a Congress of Nations in the summer of 1671. 
Great numbers of Indians came, from the St. Law- 
rence on the one side to the Mississippi on the 
other, and even, it is said, from so far down as the 
Red River, to form or to strengthen a friendship 
with the French. A post was planted marked with 
the lilies of France, and the assembled nations 
were assured that they were now under French 
protection. 

These were the settlements which preceded 
Detroit. A fort was also built by La Salle at 
the mouth of the St. Joseph, on Lake Michigan, 
in 1679, but there was no European settlement 
about it, and its importance as compared with 
Michilimackinac was small. A fort at the out- 
let of Lake Huron was built by Du Lhut in 1686, 
and named by him St. Joseph. It was constructed 
to command the passage from Lake Erie to the 
upper lakes, and its value for this purpose was 
evident, but with no settlement about it its main- 
tenance would have been troublesome and expen- 
sive, and it was abandoned two years after its 
construction. The founding of Detroit soon ren- 
dered any other post on the passage of little or no 
importance. 



16 MICHIGAN. 



CHAPTER II. 

DETROIT IS FOUNDED, AND AT LENGTH SUR- 
RENDERED TO ENGLAND. 

The pathway for Indian traffic and missionary 
enterprise from Quebec and Montreal was by way 
of the Ottawa and French rivers to the Georgian 
Bay, and thence to Michilimackinac, St. Marie, 
and other stations. The existence of the connect- 
ing strait between lakes Huron and Erie must 
have been known to the French at an early day, 
but it is not certain that any one of that nation 
passed through it prior to the expedition made 
by Joliet, under the command of the intendant 
Talon, to discover and explore the copper mines 
of Lake Superior, of which rumors were preva- 
lent. Indeed, that Joliet passed through this 
strait is only matter of plausible conjecture, for 
he left no record of this part of his journey ; but 
on his return from his unsuccessful search for 
mineral wealth in 1669, he encountered, near the 
head of Lake Ontario, La Salle and the Sulpitian 
fathers Dollier and Galin^e, who had started on 
their journey of exploration for a passage to the 
South Sea, and the information he imparted to 



LA SALLE'S PARTY DIVIDES. 17 

them respecting the upper lake country and the 
spiritual wants of the Indians of that region so 
fired the zeal of the worthy fathers that, in spite 
of the remonstrances of La Salle, they determined 
to part with him and take their course to the up- 
per lakes by way of Lake Erie. The separation 
took place at the end of September, 1669, but 
they did not cross Lake Ontario until the follow- 
ing spring, and they arrived at the Sault Ste. 
Marie on May 25, 1670, having landed on or near 
the site of Detroit on the way up, and seized and 
destroyed with iconoclastic fury and indignation 
a stone idol which they found there, and whose 
remains they threw into the middle of the river, 
that it "might never be heard of again." At the 
Sault they were received with frigid reserve by 
the Jesuits, who plainly gave them to understand 
they were not wanted there, and they returned in 
discouragement by way of the Ottawa. A crude 
map made by Galinee and a minute journal of 
their travels were the valuable results of the ex- 
pedition, and the importance of Detroit was from 
this time known to the colonial authorities. It 
seems probable, also, that at times it was tempo- 
rarily occupied as a military post. But it was 
soon to receive more attention, and become a post 
of first importance, for Antoine de la Motte Ca- 
dillac, a man of mark and ability, now appears 
upon the scene. 

We first hear of Cadillac in America in the 
2 



18 MI en WAN. 

year 1687, when he was married at Quebec, be- 
ing then in the thirtieth year of his age. Two 
years afterwards he went to France, and returned 
with a large grant of lands, with manorial rights, 
on the shores of Maine. He was subsequently 
employed in positions of importance in the naval 
and military service of the king, and was so highly 
esteemed for his judgment and his knowledge of 
colonial affairs that, in 1692, at the request of 
Count Pontchartrain, he was sent to France by 
the governor -general, to give advice respecting 
the military affairs of the province in its deal- 
ings with New York and New England. In the 
fall of 1694 he was appointed to the command 
of Micbilimackinac, where he remained for five 
years. Surveying the field of French trade and 
influence from that remote post, Cadillac had be- 
come convinced that Detroit, rather than any of 
the upper stations, was the point from which the 
fur trade could best be controlled, and where the 
friendly Indians could most conveniently be con- 
centrated for thfe mutual protection of themselves 
and their French allies. Impressed with this view, 
he again went to France in 1700, determined, if 
possible, to obtain the necessary authority as well 
as the necessary assistance for the establishment 
of a settlement at Detroit. In a long interview 
with Count Pontchartrain he presented very fully 
the advantages of Detroit, its supreme importance 
as a military and trading post, the excellence of 



LA MOTTE CADILLAC. 19 

the soil about it, and the desirability of planting 
in that country an agricultural colony. The sa- 
gacious minister was so impressed with his ear- 
nestness, and with the reasons assigned, that the 
desired permission was cordially given, and Cadil- 
lac returned to Canada early in 1701, bearing a 
grant from the king of a tract of land fifteen ar- 
pents square, " wherever on the Detroit the new 
fort should be established," and with assurance 
of military and other assistance. Making brief 
pause at Quebec he pushed on to Montreal, where 
he completed his arrangements for the new under- 
taking. Fifty soldiers and fifty Canadian traders 
and artisans were secured by him, and with these 
in canoes, well supplied with the essentials to a 
new settlement in the woods, he started from La 
Chine at the beginning of June. The younger 
Tonty was commander of the military force, a 
R^collet priest accompanied the party as chap- 
lain, and a Jesuit as missionary to the Indians. 
The old route by the Ottawa and Lake Huron 
was followed, and the boats were drawn up on the 
shore at the point of destination, on July 24th. A 
stockade fort was immediately constructed which, 
in honor of the minister, was named Fort Pont- 
chartrain, and log houses thatched with grass soon 
went up, in which the settlers found shelter and 
a home. 

At this time the solitude of the vast forests of 
Michigan was unbroken by the sound of the wood- 



20 MICHIGAN. 

man's axe. The great oaks, hickories, wahiuts, 
and maples towered secure in majestic grandeur, 
and in all the region of the pine there was audi- 
ble as yet neither promise nor prophecy of the rich 
harvest which the lumberman of another day was 
to reap. In the openings of Southern Michigan, 
which Nature had decked with more than royal 
adornments, the elk and the deer found abundant 
pasturage, and the bear fed on mast and tracked 
the honey bee to his secret store. The beaver 
was still building dams in the forest watercourses, 
and the buffalo fed on the prairies and frequented 
the abundant salt licks. Choice fish were abun- 
dant, but undisturbed, in the lakes and streams of 
the interior. The iron of Lake Superior was still 
unknown, and the wealth of its copper was but 
a rumor, of which the copper ornaments some- 
times displayed by the Indian women furnished 
the only confirmation. The Indian population of 
the southern peninsula of Michigan was not great ; 
the terror of the Iroquois had made their enemies 
seek safety in the distance. Around the trading 
posts and missions, or within easy reach, they 
had gathered, and many of them under Jesuit 
teaching had become nominally Christian. But 
their conversion had scarcely made them less sav- 
age and brutal than before ; it had not changed 
their nature, and they could torture the prisoners 
taken in battle or by treachery, and on great oc- 
casions devour their flesh as a stimulant to cour- 



EDUCATION OF THE INDIANS. 21 

age, with the same delight as ever. The Ottawas, 
said Cadillac a little later, " would be baptized 
a hundred times a day for a hundred drinks of 
brandy." " The only good that the missionaries 
do consists in the baptism of children, who die 
after having received it, and perchance adminis- 
tering the same rite to some old man at the hour 
of death." But Cadillac did not like the Jesuits, 
and he underrated the value of their services. It 
was a great and lasting benefit to the Indians, 
that under the influence of the priests they were 
taught foresight, and in the enlarged cultivation 
of the soil were induced to provide against the 
contingencies of bad seasons and occasional fail- 
ures of the chase, and thus to forestall and pre- 
vent the famines that sometimes had visited them 
with destructive severity. Their agriculture at 
the best was crude and limited, but it became at 
length adequate to their wants, and they were the 
farmers and the gardeners for the soldiers and 
traders. 

Of the traders with the Indians at this early 
period some were regular, and traded under the 
existing grant of monopoly, or by special permits. 
More, however, were irregular. In the woods 
about every station were many eoureurs de bois, 
or bushrangers, who carried on a lawless trafiic in 
furs and peltry with the Indians, and lived with 
them much of the time in their wigwams. Their 
trade, though illegal, was generally connived at 



22 MICHIGAN. 

by all but the regular traders, whose profits it 
would diminish, and even these sometimes found 
the bushrangers valuable agents in bringing to 
their places of business the traffic that otherwise 
might have been secured by the English. To the 
colony at large these people were an undoubted 
advantage, for they gave valuable assistance in 
maintaining friendly relations with the Indians^ 
and if danger threatened they had early knowl- 
edge of it and could give warning in season. But 
they lived like savages and loved the savage life. 
At the same time they were never weaned from 
their native attachments, but were Frenchmen in 
spirit even when they had abandoned the manners 
and methods of civilization. 

Dominion over the territory lying between the 
great lakes was claimed by both Canada and New 
York, on similar grounds of prior discovery and 
possession. But most of the claims on both sides, 
so far as can now be ascertained, had little founda- 
tion in fact. A sharp correspondence had taken 
place on the subject between Governor Dongan 
on the one side and De la Barre on the other, 
and this was renewed when De la Barre had 
been succeeded by Denonville. But the corre- 
spondence had no result; each party continued its 
efforts to obtain the trade of the Lake region, 
while jealously watching the other, and stirring up 
strife against their rivals as opportunity offered. 
In all intercourse with the Indians the French 



THE FRENCH AND THE INDIANS. 23 

had one very great advantage over their rivals : 
they affiliated with them more readily ; they met 
them more freely and easily on terms of fellow- 
ship ; their manners were less austere and abrupt ; 
and they took more pains by friendly attentions 
and courtesies to conciliate favor. In many cases, 
too, their young men formed lasting attachments 
and family relations with the forest maidens, and 
a thousand ties were woven between the Indians 
and the French, which in the intercourse of the 
former with the English were comparatively un- 
known. On the other hand, the English goods 
were always cheaper, and the Indians had shrewd- 
ness enough to discover the fact, and to avail 
themselves of it whenever they were permitted 
and found it practicable and safe to do so. But 
after the founding of Detroit the French generally 
monopolized their trade. Cadillac assigned to 
the minister many reasons for this. "■ One is that 
each savage, one with another, kills per year only 
fifty or sixty beavers, and as he is neighbor to the 
Frenchman, frequently borrows of him, paying in 
proportion to his returns by the chase ; with the 
little that remains to him he is compelled to 
make purchases for his family. Thus he finds 
himself unable to go to the English, because his 
remaining goods are not worth the trouble of car- 
rying so far ; not being sufficient to pay him for 
the expense of his journey. Another reason is 
that in frequenting the French he receives many 



24 MICHIGAN. 

caresses ; they are too cunning to allow his furs 
to escape, especially when they succeed in making 
him eat and drink with them. The will to go to 
the English still exists among the savages, but 
they are skillfully reduced to the impossibility of 
its execution."^ Thus early in America do we en- 
counter the slavery of a mortgaged future. But 
the French had not relied exclusively on their in- 
fluence with the Indians for the protection of their 
trade, but had on some occasions made use of 
force. Robert Livingston thought Detroit should 
be occupied by the English, and in 1699, after 
the treaty of Ryswick, a plan was submitted by 
him to Lord Bellamont for establishing a mili- 
tary post at that point, and settling there both 
whites and Iroquois Indians ; but the plan was 
not promptly acted upon, and two years thereafter 
Cadillac was in possession. More fortunate than 
Livingston, he had succeeded in convincing his 
government that Detroit " is a door by which one 
can go in and out to trade with all our allies j"^ 
and the king had made him the doorkeeper. 

Cadillac was not less impressed with the beauty 
of Detroit and its desirability as a home than 
with its commercial and strategic importance, and 
he grows eloquent as he describes the passage 
through which flows with moderate current " the 
living and crystal waters " of the upper lakes, 

1 Sheldon's Early Hist, of Michigan, 87, 88. 

2 Ibid. 116. 



THE PRAISES OF DETROIT. 25 

" which are so many seas of sweet water " rolling 
on to mingle with the distant ocean. The borders 
of the strait, he says, are vast prairies, and " the 
freshness of the beautiful waters keeps the banks 
always green." Natural orchards " soften and 
bend their branches under the weight and quan- 
tity of their fruit towards the mother earth which 
has produced them," and " the ambitious vine, 
which has never wept under the pruning-knife, 
builds a thick roof with its large leaves and heavy 
clusters, weighing down the top of the tree which 
receives it, and often stifling it with its embrace." 
The woods are full of game ; the forest trees are 
straight as arrows, and of prodigious size ; above 
them the courageous eagle soars looking fixedly at 
the sun ; the swans in the river are so numerous 
that one might take for lilies the reeds in which 
they crowd together, and the fish are none the 
less delicious for their great abundance. And he 
adds, with covert allusion to his enemies, the 
Jesuits, that " none but the enemies of truth 
could be enemies to this establishment, so neces- 
sary to the increase of the glory of the king, to 
the spread of religion, and to the destruction of the 
throne of Satan." 

The glowing description of the adventurous 
founder of Detroit was written with the pen of 
truth, and expressed but inadequately the senti- 
ments of the writer respecting the beauty and 
desirableness of his new location. And here he 



26 MICHIGAN. 

proposed to found the mart of commerce for all 
the noi-thwest: a town which should be the nu- 
cleus of an agricultural colony. But Detroit was 
born in chains, and weighed down with mana- 
cles in all its struggling infancy. The old system 
of repression under which Canada existed and 
languished from the first was vigorously applied 
to it. Commerce must not for a moment be free ; 
individual energy and enterprise must be kept in 
strict restraint, or if it escaped restraint it must 
be left to act in defiance of law, or in evasion of it. 
On October 31, 1701, a contract was entered into 
by the governor-general and intendant with " The 
Company of the Colony of Canada," whereby the 
posts of Detroit and of Frontenac on Lake Onta- 
rio were ceded to the company for traffic in furs, 
to the exclusion of all others, the company as- 
suming various obligations, the chief of which 
were to put and keep the forts in repair, and to 
maintain at Detroit the commandant and one 
other officer. The contract provided under severe 
penalties that the commandant and soldiers at 
Detroit should make no trade in furs with the 
savages or French, directly or indirectly, and 
the colonial authorities thus evinced their willing- 
ness that the new settlement should neither be 
"nourished by their indulgence," nor "grow by 
their neglect." 

Cadillac, having established his post, proceeded 
to gather the Indians about it, and for this pur- 



CADILLAC AND THE JESUITS. 27 

pose he looked as far as those at Michilimackinac, 
and urged them to join hiin. He was a zealous 
son of the Church, but affiliated with the order of 
St. Francis, and his cordial dislike of the Jesuits 
may have quickened his zeal in the endeavor to 
break up the mission at Michilimackinac, where 
the Jesuits were supreme. The obnoxious order 
reciprocated his dislike most fully, and his stay 
at Detroit was one long struggle with them, the 
varying phases of which are all brought out in 
the correspondence of the parties with the au- 
thorities of Canada, and that of Cadillac with 
Count Pontchartrain. Meantime the wishes of 
the minister concerning the permanent settlement 
at Detroit seem not to have been expressed with 
the precision and certainty which were important 
to the purposes of Cadillac, who in 1703 anxiously 
addresses him on the subject, with full statement 
of his own views. To make success sure, he says, 
there must be liberty of settlement. He wishes 
to know whether the soldiers should not have 
grants of land and be permitted to marry when 
able to support families ; he gives his own opin- 
ion decidedly in the affirmative, and he would 
have dwelling-places granted to the Canadians, 
who are persecuting him continually for them. 
He urges the minister to speak decidedly on this 
point, for he cannot conceal the fact that the 
company which controls the trade does not wish 
to do anything about it. Nothing, he afl&rms, is 



28 MICHIGAN. 

to be accomplished at Detroit without more in- 
habitants. 

But Cadillac was soon in a quarrel with the 
company, growing out, as he informed the minis- 
ter, of his endeavors to protect its interests against 
thieving officers. This might seem a strange rea- 
son elsewhere, but it was not strange in Canada, 
where official peculation and knavery, in public 
as well as in corporate service, was the rule, and 
continued to be so until the French power was 
overthrown. Montcalm, half a century later, de- 
clared that Canada was a land where the knaves 
grew rich, and the honest men were ruined. Be- 
ing at Montreal in the autumn of 1704, Cadillac 
was arrested and charged before the intendant 
with tyrannical conduct, and though acquitted of 
the charge he was not given leave to return to 
his post until September of the following year. 
When he received permission he did not avail 
himself of it until he had met Count Pontchar- 
train, who came to Quebec to satisfy himself, by 
personal investigation, of the true nature of the 
difficulties which appeared to hinder the prosper- 
ity of the new post. The full and minute expla- 
nations which were given him by Cadillac proved 
satisfactory,^ and it was when, with his approval, 
the commandant returned to his post in 1706, that 
the Jesuit fathers at Michilimackinac gave up the 

1 The examination and defense are given at length in Sheldon's 
Early Hist, of Michigan, 142 et seq. 



CADILLACS DIFFICULTIES. 29 

8trug:ffle with him and abandoned their station. 
But when Father Marest succeeded them at that 
place the old strife was renewed, and continued 
thereafter as active as ever. 

The chief anxiety of Cadillac was now the be- 
havior of the Indians about his fort. They were 
of various tribes, and not harmonious ; and' the 
longing among them for the cheap goods of the 
English caused some discontent. A fire at the 
fort was with much reason believed to have been 
the work of dissatisfied Indians. A number of 
the Ottawas, by invitation, went down to Al- 
bany in 1703, and while there were cunningly 
made to believe that the building of Fort Pont- 
chartrain was for the purpose of holding them 
in subjection to the French. They returned dis- 
contented, and there were continuous difficulties 
thereafter. For five years or more the settlement 
was in a state of disquietude, and Vaudreuil, the 
governor-general, in 1707 summoned the princi- 
pal chiefs to a council at Montreal, where he re- 
ceived them with displeasure and rebuke, and 
after some delay sent them back submissive, but 
with jealousies and bitterness towards each other. 
Meantime Cadillac was urging the entire aban- 
donment of Michilimackinac, but Aigrement, who 
was sent to inspect Detroit and remained at the 
post nineteen days, reported strongly against the 
plan of the commander.^ How far his report was 
1 See report, Sheldon's Early Uist. of Michigan, 280. 



30 MICHIGAN. 

meant to be truthful may be a question, but tlie 
unfriendly animus is apparent. The ground about 
Detroit, he says, is full of water, and the grass- 
hoppers eat up all the garden plants, so that it is 
necessary to plant and sow the same things even 
to the fourth time. But even if the land were 
ever so productive there would be no market for 
the surplus, and the trade of the post would never 
be useful to France ; the result of which would be 
that the establishment would always be a burden. 
Michilimackinac, on the other hand, is the ad- 
vanced post of all Canada ; the most important 
as well for its advantageous position as for the 
commerce that might be made there. But as 
matters now are, brandy and ammunition are all 
the goods sold to the Indians by the French : all 
else are furnished by the English. Cadillac, he 
takes pains to add, is generally disliked for his 
tyranny. 

Such, in brief, was the report ; but it was more 
damaging in intent than in effect. The minister, 
though sometimes hesitating, did not fail in any 
case, after full explanation had been called for 
and received, to come to the support of Cadillac, 
and of his favorite post. The faithful and per- 
sistent commandant remained at Detroit, and con- 
tinued to be the life of the settlement and the 
chief figure in the public affairs of this peninsula 
until 1710, when private affairs took him away 
from the colony. We hear of him afterwards 



PROHIBITORY MEASURES. 31 

as governor of Louisiana for a brief period, and 
still later in unconspicuous public employments in 
France, where he died in 1730. His life was one 
of varied usefulness, but his chief claim upon the 
regard of posterity rests upon his having had the 
sagacity to perceive that the site of Detroit com- 
manded a great highway of nations, and the 
courage and persistence essential to the planting, 
under many dilficulties and against powerful op- 
position, of the foundations of the City of the 
Straits. 

Among the complaints made of Cadillac was 
one of the manner in which he dealt with the 
traffic in intoxicating drinks. How to deal with 
the traffic was a problem that perplexed him, as 
it has many a statesman before and since ; and if 
his wisdom was inadequate to its mastery, he was 
but one in a long line of American rulers who 
have been equally at fault, and equally unsuccess- 
ful. Brandy in Canada, as elsewhere, had been 
found the readiest and most effective means of 
making friends with the savages. The Indian 
tasted it with delight, and he loved it not for its 
taste merely, but for the demon that was in it. 
The drunken stage which the white man would 
gladly avoid, the Indian craved ; and the Jesuit 
soon found that strong drink would prove a chief 
obstacle to the success of his labors, and that for 
the Indian, if not for the white man, brandy and 
Christianity were irreconcilable. The Jesuits, 



32 MICHIGAN. 

therefore, launched anathemas against the trade, 
and when these proved idle they obtained prohi- 
bitions ; but when the sale could no longer be 
made at the posts, it was made in the woods. 
Severe punishments were no restraint ; at one 
time the penalty was death, and several execu- 
tions actually took place ; ^ but so desperate a rem- 
edy excited other passions among the people, with- 
out cooling the passion for drink. Repeatedly we 
find it declared in official reports and papers that 
the traffic in brandy is essential to trade and to 
friendship with the Indians: they must have it 
from the French, or they will obtain it from Al- 
bany, and even religion is concerned in their not 
going to Albany, where they may be taught 
heresy to the peril of their souls. Cadillac him- 
self, when at Michilimackinac, had strongly at- 
tested the necessity of the trade, but he seems at 
Detroit to have become firmly convinced of the 
need of restraints, and to have labored faithfully 
to establish them. Among the complaints which 
Aigrement makes of him is one upon this sub- 
ject : — 

" In order to prevent the disturbances which would 
arise from the excessive use of brandy, M. La Motte 
causes it all to be put into the storehouse, and to be sold 
to each in his turn, at the rate of twenty francs a quart. 
Those who will have it, French as well as Indians, are 

1 Journal des Jesuits, Oct., 1661, See Parkman's Old Regime 
in Canada, 121, 324. 



BRANDY AND THE INDIANS. 33 

obliged to go to the storehouse to drink, and each can 
obtain at one time only the twenty-fourth part of a 
quart. It is certain that the savages cannot become in- 
toxicated on that quantity. The price is high, and as 
they can only get the brandy each in his turn, it some- 
times happens that the savages are obliged to return 
home without a taste of this beverage, and they seem 
ready to kill themselves in their disappointment." ^ 

But Cadillac's method of limiting the sale was 
probably wise for the day, and the occasional fury 
of disappointment was less to be feared than the 
voluntary madness of drunken savages. A sub- 
sequent attempt of one of the successors of Cadil- 
lac to induce the Indians voluntarily to abandon 
the use of brandy had much the same basis in 
reason as an attempt to teach the wolf voluntarily 
to abstain from the taste of blood. In a council 
held on the subject in 1721, when it was inti- 
mated that the French would refuse to sell brandy 
longer, Sastaretsi, the Huron orator, admitted 
their right to do so, and did not deny that it 
would have been much better if his people had 
never been taught to use it ; but now, he declared, 
they had become so much accustomed to the use 
that they could not do without it. The inference 
was that whether openly or secretly, from French 
or from English, the brandy they must and would 
have, and it was useless to think of preventing it. 

1 Summary of inspection of Detroit and Michilimackinac, given 
at length in Sheldon's Early Hist, of Michigan, 280 et seq. 
3 



34 MICHIGAN. 

And that Sastaretsi was right in this is proved 
by all subsequent Indian history. The restraints 
which the law has cast over the traffic have al- 
ways been mere gossamer threads, seldom felt, 
and noticed only as suggesting prudence in meth- 
ods of dealing and skill in evasion. 

Detroit was maintained as a military and trad- 
ing post under Cadillac, but it did not grow. The 
opposition to him and to his settlement was so 
vigorous and persistent that he was barely able 
to prevent its being uprooted and removed. The 
force which, in 1710, was transferred to Dubuisson 
as temporary commandant was smaller than that 
with which possession of the strait was first taken 
and the stockade fort erected. The weakness of 
the post invited attack, and in May, 1712, the 
Outagamies and Mascoutins, who had settlements 
near it, undertook to capture and destroy the fort, 
but Dubuisson had discovered their purpose and 
was on his guard. The Ottawas and the Hurons 
were not then returned from their winter's hunt, 
but they came in time to save the fort. The be- 
siegers were assailed with overwhelming force, 
and after flying for a distance of twelve miles 
were captured and slaughtered to the number of 
a thousand. But the Outagamies, though fear- 
fully weakened by this destruction, were not an- 
nihilated, and they remained unfriendly and a 
source of danger and difficulty afterwards. 

And now for forty-eight years, until the final 



PROPOSAL TO ABANDON DETROIT. 35 

surrender of New France to the English, the liis- 
tory of Detroit is a monotonous record of the bare 
existence of a post, the maintenance of which de- 
pended upon a trade which was uncertain and 
subject to many contingencies, upon the friend- 
ship of savages who were proverbially treacherous 
and were given abundant occasions for unfriend- 
liness, and upon the favor of the government, to 
which it proved an almost constant expense. In- 
cessantly, the question was coming up in public 
councils, whether Detroit should not be aban- 
doned. La Foret, who had commanded there in 
1714, felt under the need of writing a memorial 
insisting upon its importance as a military post, 
but he thought settlement about it should be 
stopped, and the settlers excluded from the fort, 
since the danger from the savages rendered im- 
provement impossible. Charlevoix, on the other 
hand, who visited the post in 1721, when Tonty 
was commandant, speaks in glowing terms of the 
agriculture about it, and of the Hurons as sharp 
traders, who raise much for sale. Beauharnais, 
who was governor-general in 1732, wrote to the 
minister : " It is impossible for that establishment 
to become considerable so long as a sufficient num- 
ber of troops are not sent thither, to whom lands 
would be granted for the purpose of improvement, 
by which course farmers would eventually be in- 
troduced." With a farming population about it 
^' this post would become considerable in a short 



36 MICHIGAN. 

time, and by its strength keep all the nations of 
the upper country in check." In 1745 Beauhar- 
nais complained that licenses to trade at Detroit 
and the upper straits, for which before that time 
large sums had been paid, could scarcely be given 
away; provisions were threatening to give out, 
and the Indians were mutinous. The year 1747 
was one of constant alarms of Indian hostility, and 
some warlike movements were observed among 
the Hurons, which it became necessary to sup- 
press. And not long after, news began to come 
from the valley of the Ohio which plainly fore- 
shadowed a struggle for that region of marvelous 
wealth and beauty, which would be certain to 
draw within its desolating vortex the people of 
Detroit and the Indian tribes that lived near or 
traded with them. 

The teeming valley was fit prize for the conten- 
tion of mighty nations, and each party could ad- 
vance claims to it which, according to the ideas 
then prevalent, had plausibility: the French by 
right of discovery and actual occupation ; the Eng- 
lish by the occupation and settlement of the sea- 
board in the same latitude, but especially in the 
right of the Iroquois Confederacy, which in 1684, 
when they dominated all this region, had in sol- 
emn council at Albany placed themselves and their 
3ountry under English "protection." In 1748 the 
Ohio Company was formed, with the avowed pur- 
pose to establish settlements in the Ohio valley, 



SLOWNESS OF DEVELOPMENT. 37 

and five years later tlie youthful George Wash- 
ington led into the valley a small military force, 
and the war began which was to convulse Europe, 
and to end only with the entire overthrow of 
French power in America. Fortunately for De- 
troit the Indians about it sympathized in this war 
with the French, and so far as they took part in 
it did so as the allies of France. Detroit, there- 
fore, heard the thunder of war only in its distant 
reverberations, and felt the shock but faintly. 
But though undisturbed it was not prosperous. 
In 1750 Gallissoniere, who had been succeeded 
as governor-general by Jonquiere, in a paper ad- 
dressed to the minister, pointed out in strong and 
clear terms the necessity for an agricultural pop- 
ulation at the military and trading posts. Of De- 
troit he said, " Did it once contain a farming pop- 
ulation of a thousand, it would feed and defend all 
the rest. Throughout the whole interior of Canada 
it is the best adapted for a town, where all the 
trade of the lakes would concentrate ; were it pro- 
vided with a good garrison and surrounded by a 
goodly number of settlements, it would be enabled 
to overawe almost all the Indians of the conti- 
nent." Through persistent effort he succeeded in 
having a few settlers sent out, who for a time 
received assistance from the government, but the 
gain to the population was not great. Vaudreuil, 
the governor-general, writing in 1755 to the min- 
ister, could say of Detroit, " That post is consid- 



38 MICHIGAN. 

erable ; well peopled ; but three times more peo- 
ple than it possesses could be easily located there. 
The misfortune is that we have not enough of 
people in the colony." 

This continued to be the misfortune until Can- 
ada became a British province. Colonies had 
grown to greatness under English neglect, and in 
the shadow of governmental disfavor ; but under 
the fostering care of French supervision and nurs- 
ing, they could only languish in the weakness of 
absolute dependence. When Canada became Brit- 
ish there was within the limits of Michigan no 
settlement which, under existing conditions, gave 
promise of substantial gro^vth and expansion. At 
Sault Ste. Marie the Chevalier de Repentigny, 
under a large grant made to him with manorial 
rights, had made some effort to plant a settle- 
ment, but it took no root and was soon forgotten. 
At Michilimackinac a trading post and a mission 
were still maintained, and Indians had their vil- 
lages about it, and practiced such imperfect agri- 
culture as suflSced for the limited needs of their 
indolent and unthrifty mode of living. Detroit 
alone had pretensions to be called a settlement ; 
but when its age and its magnificent natural ad- 
vantages are considered, the pretensions must be 
called but slight. For sixty years the Indians 
had gathered in considerable numbers about it, 
and raised their scanty crops in its vicinity, and 
been given such Christian instruction as they 



FRENCH POLICY IN COLONIES. 39 

would consent to receive, and far more than they 
were capable of understanding ; but they still re- 
mained savages, and were watched more than 
they were trusted. The few French agricultural 
settlers kept within easy reach of the shelter and 
protection of the fort. Sixty years of the French 
system of governmental absolutism, official venal- 
ity, trade monopoly, and individual dependence 
had maintained for the king a nominal sover- 
eignty over the Lake country, but it had estab- 
lished no colony worthy the name. On all the 
upper lakes not a vessel unfurled sails to the 
breeze ; the canoe and other row-boats met the 
wants of such transportation as the existing traf- 
fic called for. There was no printing-press in 
Michigan, for there was none in all New France. 
The time was to come when at many a waterfall 
and crossing of trails in the peninsula, some small 
company, less numerous than that with which 
La Motte Cadillac founded Detroit, coming with 
their axes and other agricultural implements, but 
above all with their families for permanent homes, 
would within a single year have more of perma- 
nent worth to show for their labors. 



CHAPTER III. 

PONTIAC'S VAIN STRUGGLE FOR THE HOMES 
OF HIS PEOPLE. 

On the memorable eighteenth of September, 
1759, the garrison of Quebec sorrowfully opened 
its gates, and the investing British army marched 
in and took possession. It was the stronghold of 
all Canada ; and from New Hampshire to Georgia 
Americans welcomed the news with exuberant 
rejoicings as the prelude to the inevitable submis- 
sion of all New France, and the termination of 
the savage warfare that under French inspiration 
had so long disquieted and at times devastated 
their northern and western borders. Canada also 
was alive to the significance of the great event ; 
for it was plain to all men that the permanent 
occupation of Quebec by British forces involved 
the overthow of French power in America. Ac- 
cordingly a vigorous effort was made to recover the 
place the following year, but it proved abortive, 
and on September 8, 1760, M. de Vaudreuil, the 
governor-general, surrendered Montreal, and with 
it all Canada, to General Amherst, the British 
commander. By the articles of capitulation the 



ROGERS, THE PARTISAN LEADER. 41 

undisturbed enjoyment of their property and the 
free exercise of their religion were guarantied 
to the people, but an article stipulating for the 
preservation of existing laws was refused, and the 
people were given to understand that they had 
become subjects of the British crown, and would 
be treated as such. 

Four days later General Amherst issued an 
order to Major Robert Rogers, directing him to 
proceed with a military force to Detroit and Mich- 
ilimackinac and take possession of those posts and 
administer oaths of allegiance to the inhabitants. 
Rogers was the most noted partisan leader of the 
day : he had been active and conspicuous in the 
war from the first ; no Indian had surpassed him 
in woodcraft or in cunning, and few either white 
or red had equaled him in daring or in prowess. 
He had suffered hardships of every nature incident 
to war : sickness, and wounds, and captivity, and 
starvation ; but his endurance was equal to every 
emergency, and he had come out of every trial 
with no abatement of courage or determination. 
From Lake Champlain to Quebec forest glens had 
echoed the deadly reports of his rifle, and were 
red with the bloody footsteps of his men. He 
received with pleasure the order which was to 
complete on the upper lakes the victory at Que- 
bec, and started the next day, taking the route 
by Lake Ontario, the Niagara River, and Lake 
Erie to Presque Isle, from which he diverged for 



42 MICHIGAN. 

the delivery of dispatches to General Monckton 
at Pittsburgh. Returning to Presque Isle he re- 
sumed his journey along the south shore of Lake 
Erie until November 7th, when he encamped at 
the mouth of a river which he called the Cho- 
gage, and which has been variously conjectured 
to have been the Chagrin, the Cuyahoga, and the 
Grand. Here he was met by a party of Indians 
who announced themselves messengers of Pon- 
tiac, the ruler and king of all that country, and 
who admonished the British commander in the 
name of their master, that no further advance 
should be made until Pontiac, who was near at 
hand, should arrive and give permission. The 
chief soon followed the embassy, and in haughty 
tones demanded of Rogers how he dared to enter 
his country without permission. Rogers replied 
that he had come with no hostile purpose against 
the Indians, and that his sole business was to re- 
move from the country the French, who had been 
an obstacle to peace and trade between the In- 
dians and the English. In token of friendship, 
strings of wampum were then delivered to Pon- 
tiac, who received them graciously, but signified 
his will that the party should proceed no far- 
ther until the morning ; and after exchange of 
friendly courtesies he took his departure. The 
next morning he again appeared, smoked the 
pipe of peace with Major Rogers, gave consent 
to his proceeding on his journey, and offered to 



THE FRENCH ABANDON THE FORTS. 43 

accompany liim to Detroit and give him any nec- 
essary protection against unfriendly or excited 
Indians. The offer was accepted by Major Rog- 
ers, and the party proceeded, sending forward in 
advance a notification of the coming and of its 
purpose. M. Bellestre, then in command at De- 
troit, was still vainly hoping that Canada, by a 
supreme effort, might be recovered by the French, 
and he seems to have made some effort to arouse 
the animosity of the Indians in the neighborhood 
against the English, and to induce them to aid 
him in resistance ; but Rogers gathered them in 
council near the mouth of the Detroit River, and 
having assured them of his fixed purpose to send 
the French away, promised to leave the Indians in 
possession of their own country, and to settle with 
them amicably all matters which might be the 
subject of controversy. The Indians received his 
assurances as satisfactory, and when on November 
29th Rogers reached Detroit, the French com- 
mandant, perceiving that resistance would be fu- 
tile, surrendered the post. From Detroit was sent 
out a detachment which took possession of Fort 
Miami on the Maumee and Fort Ouatanon on the 
Wabash, and Rogers himself started with a force 
to occupy Michilimackinac, but found the season 
too far advanced, and was obliged to abandon the 
undertaking. It was not until the fall of the next 
year that small forces, sent out from Detroit by 
command of Sir William Johnson, took possession 



44 MICHIGAN. 

of the forts at Michilimackinac and St. Joseph, 
and placed garrisons in them for the British 
crown. 

Thus ninety years after the establishment of 
the mission on the Straits of Michilimackinac, and 
more than a century and a half after the founding 
of Quebec, the French were compelled to yield to 
their persistent rival the vast country for which 
they had sacrificed so much, and whose possession, 
in the eyes of the world, added so considerably to 
the glory and grandeur of the crown and promised 
such great things for the future. The national 
pride was humbled, and the natioflal heart was 
touched also by the necessary abandonment of 
the French colonists. Vaudreuil, the governor- 
general, truthfully said in taking his departure : 
" With these beautiful and vast countries France 
loses seventy thousand inhabitants of a rare qual- 
ity ; a race of people unequaled for their docility, 
bravery, and loyalty. The vexations they have 
suffered for many years, more especially during 
the five years preceding the reduction of Que- 
bec, — all without a murmur, or importuning their 
king for relief, — sufiiciently manifest their perfect 
submissiveness." ^ The treaty of peace was not 
made between the two countries until February 
10, 1763, but when it came it made final conces- 
sion of Canada to the British crown. 

With the triumph of Wolfe on the heights of 
1 Garneau's Hist, of Canada, by Bell, vol. ii. p. 71. 



THE MEANING OF WOLFE'S VICTORY. 45 

Abraham, it has been said, began the history 
of the United States. Voltaire, in his retirement 
at Ferney, rejoiced at the fall of Quebec, and the 
inevitable surrender of Canada, and celebrated it 
by a banquet as the precursor of American en- 
franchisement. But this great event meant more 
than American enfranchisement : it meant the 
overthrow of the despotic principle in America, 
and the surrender of the continent, with all its im- 
mense possibilities, to the growing and expanding 
ideas of English liberty. American enfranchise- 
ment from the British rule was an event of first 
importance, but its value to the world would have 
been infinitel^T^ lessened had it not been grounded 
on the assertion and maintenance of rights assured 
to the subject by English law. For many cen- 
turies now the germs of free institutions had 
been planted in England, nurtured by the robust 
thought and defended by the vigorous arms of its 
people ; and when from time to time despotism 
trampled in the dust the incipient attempts of 
other nations to win recognition of rights or to 
gain relief from intolerable burdens, the sea- 
girt island, in maintaining her independence, pre- 
served her liberties also, and the slow but cer- 
tain development of free institutions went on 
unchecked. The two opposing principles in gov- 
ernment had now grappled in a final struggle for 
mastery in America, and when despotism fell, a 
Britain, no longer needing the protection of the 



46 MICHIGAN. 

four seas, but stepping boldly out to occupy a 
continent as master, began immediately to give 
prophecy of that vast confederacy of common- 
wealths which was successively to become the 
rebellious child, the hated rival, and at last the 
chief glory of the island parent, and the precursor 
of other confederacies of commonwealths which 
should speedily give to the English tongue and to 
English liberty an undisputed leadership on both 
continents. 

But the immediate result of the conquest to the 
conquered people was far from being either bene- 
ficial or agreeable. The French rule had been 
arbitrary and irresponsible, but the English rule 
did not promise to be immediately any less so. 
It. was, besides, the rule of the stranger over a 
people compelled to submit by force of arms, and 
every oppressive act would seem doubly oppressive 
from that fact. The British commander at once 
assumed supreme authority, and for the purposes 
of the administration of justice created a series of 
military courts to which was given jurisdiction 
of all controversies, with no appeal in case of dis- 
satisfaction except to other military authorities, or 
to the commander himself. A military judiciary, 
always arbitrary and always obnoxious, was made 
preeminently obnoxious in this case by its being 
required to govern its decisions by the English 
law, of which the people knew nothing, instead of 
the preexisting laws and usages of the country 



THE FRENCH UNDER ENGLISH RULE. 47 

to which they were accustomed, and which were 
dear to them as the laws and customs of their 
native land. If by English law had been under- 
stood the common law of England, whose rules 
for the protection of rights were definite and just, 
there would have been less reason to complain ; 
but military judges are to be expected to have 
some degree of contempt for common law methods, 
and are likely in rejecting the methods to put 
substance aside also, and make their will the test 
of right. With the intelligent among the people 
the sense of oppression was increased by the 
knowledge that this uprooting of the existing law 
by the conquering power was not according to the 
customary practice of civilized nations, and might 
for that reason be justly suspected as promising a 
rule exceptionally despotic even for the military ; 
and many of the most enterprising and thrifty 
abandoned the country, leaving the population 
sensibly diminished. Some of these returned to 
France ; many accepted the invitation of the 
people of Louisiana to remove to that district ; 
and when St, Louis was founded in 1764 some 
became residents of that town. Those who re- 
mained under British rule submitted with out- 
ward cheerfulness, but without the loyalty of 
feeling and spirit so essential in times of public 
danger. 

If the establishment of unrestricted military 
tribunals was not likely to please the French, 



i8 MICHIGAN. 

still less would the management of public affairs 
tend to conciliate the Indians, or to establish rela- 
tions of trustworthy amity with them. Most of 
the savages living in the upper lake region, hav- 
ing taken the part of the French in the war? 
which preceded the conquest, still looked upon 
the French as their friends, and would gladly have 
seen the country restored to their dominion. A 
strong hope prevailed among them, which might 
easily become a belief, that a reconquest would 
yet take place, and the advances they made to- 
wards cordial relations with the English were 
half-hearted and such only as temporary interest 
seemed to prompt. On the other hand the Eng- 
lish authorities, with strange disregard of the de- 
mands of the situation, not only neglected to 
take proper steps to wean the Indians from their 
French attachments, and to convert them from 
enmity to friendship, but by a cold, haughty, and 
reserved demeanor they repelled advances, and 
thereby gave serious offense even in the case of 
influential personages, whose favor and friendship 
were necessary to amicable relations. Where the 
French officer was easy and complaisant, and by 
his courteous bearing avoided wounding the self- 
respect of the Indian, the English officer, con- 
scious of his superiority over the brutal and dis- 
gusting savage, and impatient of any assumption 
of equality, took little pains to conceal his con- 
tempt and repugnance, and was perpetually allow- 



THE ENGLISU AND THE INDIANS. 49 

ing himself to be guilty of slights and affronts to 
which only the most abject could be expected to 
submit without resentment. The customary pres- 
ents which the Indians expected, and which the 
French had made on a scale of liberality, the 
English either discontinued entirely or measured 
by a standard of economy which showed them to 
be given not in friendship, but grudgingly, and de- 
prived them of all efficacy as a means of preserv- 
ing amicable relations. Lieutenant Gorrell, when 
he was sent to receive the surrender of the more 
western posts, was instructed to give the Indians 
no more presents than was absolutely necessary 
to keep them in temper,^ — instructions which he 
might well say made him uneasy, so different 
were they in spirit from the policy which had 
prevailed with the French. And what was nom- 
inally given was often dishonestly appropriated 
by agents, or only delivered to the Indians to 
whom it was sent when they had paid for it such 
sum as the agent saw fit to exact.^ In Western 
Pennsylvania and Virginia the settlers were con- 
tinually encroaching upon the lands of the In- 
dians, and though the tribes west of the lakes 
were as yet unmolested, they saw in the case 
of their brothers what they might soon expect 
from the restless and greedy English, and they 
perceived very clearly that in this particular, at 

1 Wis. Hist. Col. vol. i. p. 32 

2 Stone's Life of Sir Wm, Johnson, vol. ii. p. 137- 

4 



50 MICHIGAN. 

least, the cause of one tribe was the cause of all. 
Jefferson did not exaggerate when he said that 
the settlers in many cases regarded neither the' 
laws, treaties, nor proclamations of their own gov- 
ernment, nor the remonstrances of the Indians, 
and that the lives of men, women, and children 
were ruthlessly taken by them. 

More than ever before trade with the Indians 
was now the occasion of injustice and outrage, 
and exasperations arising from it were frequent. 
Under French sway some degree of fair dealing 
was secured to the savage ; the trader became his 
friend and boon companion, and made his com- 
ing to dispose of his peltry an occasion for festiv- 
ity and roisterous goodfellowship, when all would 
partake of the same fare, drink of the same bev- 
erages, and indulge in the same sports. At Detroit 
and elsewhere some of these traders remained, 
and of the new-comers some were Scotch, with 
many characteristics resembling those of their 
predecessors, who sought, while making great 
profits out of the Indians, to win and preserve 
their favor. But there were many of a different 
sort, whose greed knew no bounds, and in whose 
service, as Parkman has forcibly said, " were ruf- 
fians of the coarsest stamp, who vied with each 
other in rapacity, violence, and profligacy. They 
cheated, plundered, and cursed the Indians and 
outraged their families, offering, when compared 
with the French traders who were under better 



TEE INDIANS AND LIQUOR. 51 

regulation, a most unfavorable example of the 
character of their nation." ^ Liquor was the ever 
ready means by the use of which the Indian was 
defrauded. Returning from the chase after long 
abstinence, his eagerness for intoxicating drinks 
was passionate, and when once indulged, his rea- 
son and his self-restraint were overcome, and he 
was powerless for any purpose of self-protection. 
We get a vivid picture of what must have been 
a frequent occurrence at Detroit from the narra- 
tive of a white person who was taken prisoner in 
Western Pennsylvania and adopted into one of 
';he Indian tribes. 

" A trader [he says] came to town with French 
orandy ; we purchased a keg of it, and held a council 
about who was to get drunk and who was to keep sober. 
I was invited to get drunk, but I refused the proposal ; 
then they told me I must be one of those who were to 
take care of the drunken people. I did not like this, 
but of two evils I chose that which I thought was the 
least, and fell in with those who were to conceal the 
arms and keep every dangerous weapon we could out of 
their way, and endeavor, if possible, to keep the drink- 
ing club from killing each other, which was a very hard 
task. Several times we hazarded our own lives, and got 
ourselves hurt in preventing them from slaying each 

other." 2 

\ 

1 Conspiracy of Pontiac, 155. 

2 Account of Remarkable Occurrences, etc., by Col. James Smith, 
76. 



52 MICHIGAN. 

The debauch went on while a beaver skin re- 
mained, and when it was over the Indian found 
he bad exchanged for it the results of his labors 
for weeks or months. If he ventured to make 
complaint he was answered with curses and blows, 
and was driven off as a creature whose presence, 
now that his immediate usefulness to the unscru- 
pulous trader was exhausted, had become repul- 
sive. Nor was the trader any more regardful of 
the rights or of the safety of the white settlers 
than of the Indians ; for in the time immediately 
preceding Pontiac's war, when the government of 
Pennsylvania had forbidden trade with the In- 
dians from regard to the public safety, traders 
did not scruple openly to disobey the law, and 
supplied the Indians freely with the maddening 
liquors and with the very guns and ammunition 
by the use of which they were subsequently en- 
abled to plunder and ravage the frontier. So bold 
and reckless was the defiance of law by the deal- 
ers that in some cases the indignant people retali- 
ated with violence, and seized and destroyed their 
stores. When, however, the Indian alone was the 
sufferer from fraud and lawless rapacity, his com- 
plaints received little attention from either the 
authorities or the people, and any resentment on 
his part that went to the extreme of violence was 
certain to be regarded as the outrage of a savage, 
which must be visited with swift and condign ret- 
ribution. But there was very general recogni- 



FAILURE TO STRENGTHEN THE COLONY. 53 

tion of the fact that difficulties began with the 
traders, and so loud and so general had become 
the complaints of misconduct and outrage on their 
part, that in the summer of 1761 Sir William 
Johnson was sent to Detroit with full authority 
to correct such evils as he might find to exist, and 
to take into his own hands complete supervision 
and control of Indian trade in the Northwest. He 
reached Detroit in the beginning of September, 
where he held council with a number of Indian 
tribes, and no doubt did whatever seemed to him 
possible in the correction of abuses. But the cor- 
rection, when the restraining power was to be at 
a distance, could at best be only temporary and 
partial ; greed was more powerful than the sense 
of justice or the feeling of humanity, and the 
story of one year was repeated in the next with 
variation only of actors and minor circumstances. 
Meantime nothing was being done in the North- 
west to strengthen the exposed settlements by 
bringing about them what they needed most of 
all, a class of agricultural laborers, who would 
live on the results of their own industry. The 
French were not brought into sentiments of at- 
tachment to their new government by a concilia- 
tory deportment towards them, and with both 
French and Indians the hope was indulged that 
the overthrow of French power would prove but 
temporary, and that before long that great na- 
tion might be expected to put forth its mighty 



64 MICHIGAN. 

energies for the recovery of its lost prestige and 
dominion. 

The fires of discontent were smouldering every- 
where, and nothing was needed but the breath of 
a bold and daring spirit to blow them into flame. 
And such a spirit promptly appeared on the stage. 
Pontiac, who with such haughtiness had inter- 
posed to stay the advance of Major Rogers, was 
one of those rare characters among the Indians 
whose merits are so transcendent that, without 
the aid of adventitious circumstances, they take 
by common consent the headship in peace and the 
leadership in war. In battle he had shown his 
courage, in council his eloquence and his wisdom ; 
he was wary in planning and indefatigable in exe- 
cution ; his patriotism was ardent and his ambi- 
tion boundless, and he was at this time in all 
the region between the head-waters of the Ohio 
and the distant Mississippi, the most conspicuous 
figure among the savage tribes, and the predes- 
tined leader in any undertaking which should en- 
list the general interest. Of the Ottawas he was 
the principal chief, and he made his home at their 
village opposite and a little above Detroit, with a 
summer residence on Peclie Island in Lake St. 
Clair. But he was also chief of a loose Confed- 
eracy of the Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Pottawat- 
amies, and his influence extended far beyond 
those tribes, and placed him above rivalry in all 
the lake region and the valley of the Ohio. The 



PONT/ACS VIEWS. 55 

change in territorial sovereignty had not been 
agreeable to him ; he perceived very clearly that 
with the accession of the English to undisputed 
sway in the interior, the greatness and even the 
security of his people were threatened, and that 
unless bounds could be set to English encroach- 
ments the Indians must inevitably be debased by 
their enticements, robbed by their unscrupulous 
arts, and at last driven from their homes and their 
hunting grounds by a rapacity that seemed insati- 
able. While the French held Canada the Indians 
had been courted by both sides as holding a cer- 
tain effective power which made their friendship 
of high value ; but now that France had appar- 
ently abandoned the long struggle for a share in 
the new world, the Indian was made to feel that 
he no longer had an importance entitling him to 
respect, but was an inferior being whose rights 
were subordinate to the interests of the superior 
race, and who in all controversies would be held 
presumptively in the wrong, and compelled to 
submit to such justice as his adversaries should 
see fit to concede to him. To a bold and haughty 
spirit like that of Pontiac, this condition of things 
was intolerable, and he resolved to strike a blow 
that should at once break the yoke of servitude, 
and be ample warning against further encroach- 
ments upon Indian rights and territorial and per- 
sonal independence. In the preparation for this 
blow he had the important, if not indispensable, 



56 MICHIGAN. 

assistance of a propliet, wbo sprang up among 
the Delawares at the need of the hoar, and who 
promised his people restoration to their former 
importance and power, on condition, however, that 
they should abandon the arts and the habits of 
civilized life, throw away the implements which 
they had received from the white people, and re- 
turn once more to their primitive simplicity. 

The British advanced posts at this time compre- 
hended Niagara, Pitt, formerly Du Quesne, Ligo- 
nier, southeast of Pitt, Le Boeuf and Venango on 
the Alleghany, Presque Isle, Sandusky, Miami, 
where Fort Wayne was afterwards built, Detroit, 
Michilimackinac, Le Baye at the head of Green 
Bay, St. Joseph near the mouth of the river of that 
name, and Ouatanon on the Wabash. The plan 
devised by Pontiac for their reduction, while thor- 
oughly characteristic of his race, was worthy of 
bis masterly mind. He proposed by preconcerted 
action on the part of the Indians in the neighbor- 
hood of all these posts to surprise and capture 
them simultaneously, and thus at one blow to 
annihilate British power in the West. To make 
his scheme successful he needed to enlist not only 
all Indians under his immediate control, but the 
Senecas of New York also ; and this he found 
means to accomplish. 

Detroit being the most important and com- 
manding of all the posts, Pontiac in person took 
charge of the movement against it. The fort had 



FAILURE OF THE INDIAN STRATAGEM. 57 

a garrison of a hundred and twenty-eight men, 
under command of Major Gladwin ; a number of 
fur-traders with their servants were living within 
the stockade, which also inclosed the town proper, 
and the dwellings outside along the shore were 
almost exclusively of French farmers and garden- 
ers. Below the town on the western side was a 
village of the Pottawatamies ; opposite was one of 
the Wyandots, and farther up was that of the 
Ottawas, as before stated. The stratagem which 
Pontiac devised was to have his warriors shorten 
their rifles to a length which would admit of their 
being concealed under their blankets, and then, un- 
der pretense of a council, obtain admission to the 
fort, and at a given signal fall upon and slaughter 
the unsuspecting and unprepared garrison. 

The plan came so near success that its failure 
seems almost providential. The process of short- 
ening their guns by files and saws was observed 
by some of the French settlers, one of whom 
communicated the fact to Major Gladwin, and 
warned him that danger was brewing. But Glad- 
win paid no heed to the warning, and seems to 
have had a strange and unaccountable confidence 
in his savage neighbors. On the following day, 
however, which was May 6, 1763, an Indian maid 
who had become possessed of the plan, and who 
cherished kindly feelings for the commandant, 
managed to obtain a private interview with him, 
and revealed the full extent of the conspiracy and 



58 MICHIGAN. 

of his danger. Pontiac, she informed him, with 
sixty other chiefs was to come the next day to the 
fort, with their shortened guns under their blan- 
kets, and demand a council. This being granted 
he would deliver his speech, and then offer a belt 
of wampum, but holding it in reversed position, 
which would be the signal for attack. The chiefs 
were instantly to spring to their feet and shoot 
down the officers, and the other Indians were im- 
mediately to rush in and massacre the soldiers and 
the traders. Not an Englishman was to be left 
alive, but all Frenchmen were to be spared as not 
being their enemies. 

Gladwin immediately prepared for the emer- 
gency, and when Pontiac with his subordinate 
chiefs entered the gateway of the fortress the 
next morning, he was startled at perceiving the 
garrison under arms, and tiie fur-traders posted 
with their rifles at commanding positions, as if 
awaiting attack. It was evident his treachery 
was discovered ; but he preserved his composure 
and proceeded to the council-house, where Glad- 
win and the other officers were awaiting him as 
if anticipating only a friendly interview. The 
wily chieftain demanded to be informed why the 
men were in hostile array, and was told they had 
been ordered under arms for discipline and ex- 
ercise. With hesitation and evident distrust he 
rose at length to make his speech, which in terms 
was friendly, and expressive of attachment to the 



GLADWIN BAFFLES PONT I AC. 59 

English. Gladwin answered calmly, without in- 
timating any suspicions of their intentions, and 
after receiving some trifling presents, the Indians 
retired to their camp. The next morning Pontiac 
came with three of his chiefs and renewed the 
friendly professions, and again on the morning of 
May 9th he made his appearance, but this time 
accompanied by a great crowd of Indians. The 
gate was shut against them, and Pontiac de- 
manded to be informed why he was refused ad- 
mittance to the fort. The commandant replied 
that the chief should be free to enter, but that 
the crowd which accompanied him must remain 
outside. To this the savage rejoined that he de- 
sired his warriors to enjoy with him the fragrance 
of the pipe of peace. But Gladwin was immov- 
able, and Pontiac, baffled and enraged, turned 
away, and entering a boat, proceeded to the Ot- 
tawa village on the opposite shore. His followers 
were now fully aware that further attempts at 
deception would be useless ; the war-whoop was 
immediately raised, and while some rushed to a 
house on the common occupied by an English 
woman with her family, whom they immediately 
slaughtered and scalped, others pulled off in a 
boat to Isle au Cochon, where an Englishman had 
his home, and subjected him to the same fate. 

That night the Ottawa population was trans- 
ferred to the western shore, and at daybreak 
a desperate attempt was made upon the fort, and 



60 MICHIGAN. 

for six hours was kept up continuously, but with- 
out avail. Two armed vessels anchored in front 
of the fort rendered valuable assistance to the gar- 
rison, and the efforts of the besiegers soon began 
to show indications of discouragement. Gladwin 
now hoping that the whole affair was but a tem- 
porary ebullition of anger on the part of the 
Indians, attempted to open negotiations with their 
commander, but this only resulted in Major Camp- 
bell and Lieutenant McDougall being inveigled 
into the hands of Pontiac, where they were treach- 
erously detained. McDougall in a short time suc- 
ceeded in escaping, but Campbell met a tragic 
fate, being seized, bound to a tree, and shot to 
death with arrows in revenge for the death of an 
Ojibwa chief whose scalp had been foolishly ex- 
hibited in derision at the fort. That no circum- 
stance of horror might be wanting, his heart was 
torn out and devoured. 

From this time savage ingenuity was exhausted 
in vain endeavor to capture Detroit. The assaults 
upon other posts were attended with more success. 
Sandusky, St. Joseph, Miami, Ouatanon, Presque 
Isle, Le Boeuf, and Venango were all captured in 
the months of May and June, and in order of time 
as here enumerated. The fate of Michilimackinac 
was highly dramatic and tragical, and the story 
as told by Alexander Henry,^ the trader who 

^ Travels and Adventures in Canada and Indian Territories, 
1760-1766. 



THE PERIL OF DETROIT. 61 

chanced to be present and was fortunate enough 
to escape, is one of the most exciting, as well as 
most familiar, in the literature of savage warfare. 
The succession of dramatic incident could not be 
given in brief without marring its intensity of 
interest ; but in the narrative of Henry and in a 
subsequent letter from the commandant to Glad- 
win,i we are presented the picture of the Indians 
gathering about the fort as for a day's sport, the 
unsuspicious commandant opening his gates to 
their squaws, who strolled in one by one with 
a^ms concealed under their blankets, the Indians 
engaging in their favorite game of baggatiway, 
and throwing the ball back and forth, nearer and 
nearer the stockade, until at last it lands in the 
fort, when they rush in as if to recover it, and 
once in, raise the war-cry, and seizing the con- 
cealed weapons, fall to the work of scalping and 
slaughter. All the English not slain were made 
prisoners, but no violence was offered to any 
Frenchman. 

Detroit so far had escaped, but its fate for a 
long time seemed uncertain. One detachment 
sent from Niagara for its relief was intercepted 
and driven back ; another, under Captain Dalzell, 
was more successful. Desirous of signalizing his 
coming by some marked achievement, the captain 
planned and executed a night attack on the Indian 
camp, but was ambushed at a stream two miles 

^ June 12, 1763 : Conspiracy of Pontiac, 596. 



62 MICniGAN. 

above the fort and slain with many of his men. 
This fight occurred on July 30th, and thereafter 
for a time the siege was pushed with vigor. But 
the reinforcement had put the garrison in better 
condition for resistance than before, and though 
the siege went on, the prospects of success conthi- 
ually diminished. Early in October the O jib was 
made some advances towards peace. At the end 
of that month, Pontiac, who up to that time had 
cherished hopes of French intervention and as- 
sistance, was advised by letter from M. Neyon, 
commandant at Fort Chartres, that hopes of as- 
sistance from that quarter were idle, and that it 
would be wise for him to abandon hostilities. 
From that time the siege was substantially raised 
for the winter, and the Indians went off on their 
annual hunt. In the spring hostilities were re- 
newed about the fort, but to little effect. Mean- 
time Sir William Johnson, who best of all the 
English officials understood the Indian character, 
and was fitted by temperament and sympathy to 
deal with the savages, was arranging for a grand 
council at Niagara in the summer, with a view to 
bringing about a general peace. The meeting 
which he succeeded in procuring was attended by 
a great number of Indians, including not only 
many from the several tribes of the Iroquois Con- 
federacy, but Caughnawagas from Canada, Otta- 
was, Ojibwas, Wyandots, Winnebagoes, Menom- 
inies, Sacs, and Foxes, and even the Osages from 



END OF PONTIACS SCHEME. 63 

beyond the Mississippi, and many others. The 
conciliatory deportment of Sir William Johnson 
and a liberal distribution of presents had the de- 
sired effect upon the Indians, and they returned 
to their homes in a peaceful frame of mind. 
General Bradstreet, with a considei'able army, 
was then on his way to Detroit, where he arrived 
at the end of August, relieving the garrison from 
its long beleaguerment. A detachment was im- 
mediately sent up to take possesssion of Michili- 
mackinac and to reoccupy the abandoned posts 
of Sault Ste. Marie and Green Bay, all of which 
was accomplished without noteworthy incident. 

Pontiac haughtily held aloof from all negotia- 
tions, and repelled all advances. In the summer 
of 1764 he was in the West endeavoring to stimu- 
late the Western tribes to vigorous measures. He 
was also soliciting aid from the French ; but all 
his efforts were without avail. He even sent an 
embassy to New Orleans, where tlie French, 
though the territory had been ceded to Spain, 
were still in possession ; but he received no en- 
couragement from that quarter. This was the 
end of his hopes. On August 27, 1765, he met 
George Croghan, the emissary of Sir William 
Johnson, in a conference at Detroit, and smoked 
with him the pipe of peace. "It is your chil- 
dren's pipe," he said, " and as the war is all over, 
and the Great Spirit and Giver of Light, who 
has made the earth and everything therein, has 



64 MICHIGAN. 

brought us all together this day for our mutual 
good, I declare to all nations that I have settled 
my peace with you before I came here, and now 
deliver my pipe to be sent to Sir William John- 
son, that he niay know I have made peace and 
taken the King of England for my father." But 
he was then settled on the Maumee, and declined 
the invitation to return to his old home, assign- 
ing for his refusal a reason that, to one who loved 
his race and desired its preservation, should have 
been conclusive. " If we dwelt near you at our 
old village of Detroit our warriors would always 
be drunk, and quarrels would arise between us 
and you." " Where we live is so nigh to you that 
when we want to drink we can easily come for 
it." 1 Pontiac plainly saw that the struggle for 
the independence of his people was ended, and 
that nothing remained for them now but present 
subjection and, if they remained in the vicinity 
of white settlements, degrading dissipation with 
ultimate extinction. In July of the next year he 
met Sir William Johnson himself at Oswego, and 
renewed in the most formal manner his assurances 
of friendship. He assumed to speak the voice of 
all the Western nations, and Sir William was as- 
sured by him that what he agreed to do would 
be a law to them. With vague reference to what 
had gone before, he submissively said that " He 
who made the Universe would have it so." 
1 Conspiracy of Pontiac, 556 ; Hildreth's Pioneer History, 76. 



DEATH OF PONT I AC. 65 

The masterly but unavailing effort of Pontiac 
for the independence and preservation of his race 
is often spoken of as a conspiracy ; but making 
due allowance for the barbarous methods of In- 
dian warfare, the fair mind must admit that it 
was as patriotic and as deserving of generous 
commemoration as the struggle of Cromwell for 
the liberties of Englishmen, or of Kosciusko for 
the independence of Poland. A year later the 
great chieftain was assassinated at Cahokia, Il- 
linois, by a Kaskaskia Indian instigated to the 
crime by an English trader, and by the gift of a 
barrel of liquor and the promise of further re- 
ward. The dastardly murder brought speedy ven- 
geance upon the assassin, his tribe, and all their 
allies. But the chief criminal was unmolested, 
and as only Indians were the victims, the consti- 
tuted authorities abstained from all interference. 

Note. — The story that Gladwin was warned by an Indian 
girl appears in Carver's Travels through North America. Carver 
visited Detroit five years after the siege. The tale is inherently im- 
probable, is not borne out by subsequent events, and is strongly 
contradicted by The Pontiac Diiiry, a daily record of events, which 
gives the details of an interview between an Indian named Malii- 
gan and Major Gladwin and Ca|)tain Canij)bell. The Indian 
revealed the plot under promise of secrecy, which promise Gladwin 
faithfully observed. The Indian maiden story belongs to a class 
of imaginative frontier tales familiar to the student of Western 
history. 

S 



CHAPTER IV. 

A DECADE OF MILITARY ABSOLUTISM. 

PoNTiAc's war had desolated many settlements, 
and left behind only the ashes of burned habita- 
tions and the bleaching bones of the people. But 
in the vicinity of Detroit its desolating tracks 
were few and soon effaced. The French people 
then resident in Michigan had not been looked 
upon by the Indians as enemies, and the war had 
been waged not against them, but against the 
English, who held them in subjection by force of 
arms. " It is not to avenge myself alone," said 
Pontiac to the French of Detroit, " that I make 
war on the English. It is to avenge you, my 
brothers. When the English insulted us they in- 
sulted you also. I know that they have taken 
away your arms and made you sign a paper, 
which they have sent away to their country. 
Therefore you are left defenseless, and I mean 
now to avenge your cause and my own together." 
So their possessions were spared, and they were 
treated as friends whom the fortune of war had 
subjected to a hated foreign yoke, which they 
would willingly embrace the first favoring oppor- 



MILITARY RULE. 67 

fcunity to cast off. A people so regarded by the 
enemy must necessarily be distrusted by their 
own government, and when the war was over the 
condition of the people of Detroit, under the gov- 
ernment of suspicious rulers, was very far from 
being enviable. The king's proclamation on the 
ratification of the treaty of cession, in 1763, had 
established military control, and not until the 
dawn of the American Revolution, when concilia- 
tion of Canada seemed to promise the opportunity 
for a revival of the former antagonisms between 
that colony and those which were now becoming 
rebellious, were any steps taken to give this vast 
country civil gcvernment. 

Nominally Detroit was within the jurisdiction 
of the governor-general of Canada, but its great 
distance from the capital, and its complete isola- 
tion from other settlements, enabled the officer in 
command to wield at pleasure an authority which 
was almost autocratic. Complaints of oppression 
do not appear to have been numerous, but in this 
there is nothing surprising. The only authority 
competent to give relief was the military com- 
mander of the province. To reach him would be 
difficult, and if reached, it might be expected he 
would listen with little favor to complaints of 
abuses which must naturally attend the adminis- 
tration of a system of which he was himself the 
head. And moreover, the natural inclinations of 
the French settlers, who were docile and submis- 



68 MICHIGAN. 

sive, would lead tliem to submit silently to such 
wrongs as were found endurable, rather than to 
make complaint of the officials whose authority 
over them was in no manner restricted by law, 
and might in many ways be abused with impu- 
nity. 

While Bradstreet remained in command at De- 
troit he held court for the trial of offenders, and 
banished some persons on the charge of having 
given assistance to Pontiac. But this officer had 
the good sense to perceive that regular courts 
and a steady administration of the law were es- 
sential, and he urged the need of them upon the 
attention of government. He also believed that 
encouragement should be given to settlers, though 
it does not appear that he suggested any particu- 
lar measures to that end. But at home his views 
elicited no favorable response. The government 
showed little inclination to limit the absolutism 
of military rule, and its regulations in respect to 
land, while in the main just in so far as they 
were intended for the protection of the Indians, 
were well calculated to prevent any extension of 
the settlements. 

By royal proclamation of October 7, 1763, war- 
rants of survey and patents of any lands beyond 
the heads or sources of any of the rivers falling 
into the Atlantic from the west or northwest, 
or of any lands not ceded by the Indians, were 
strictly forbidden. Private persons were also for. 



DEALINGS IN LAND. 69 

bidden to purchase from the Indians, and grants 
were only to be solicited from them by the gov- 
ernor or commander-in-chief of the proper colony 
at public meeting or assembly of the Indians held 
for the purpose, under proper regulations. The 
proclamation had some effect in restraining the 
acquisition of land for settlement and cultivation, 
but did not prevent speculative dealings with tlxe 
Indians, and Governor-General Gage, fifteen years 
later, in a letter to Captain Stevenson, then in 
command at Detroit, found it necessary to deal 
very summarily with the local land transactions. 
Calling attention to the fact that none but the 
governors of provinces had had authority to make 
grants, and that no purchases from the Indians, 
without the king's permission, could be of any 
validity, he proceeds to say : — 

" I am now to require of you as soon as this is re- 
ceived to annul and make void by public act every con- 
cession made by Mons"" Bellestre in the year 1760; 
every grant made by any British commander without 
exception, and all Indian purchases whatever, or Indian 
deeds not obtained by the king's permission and au- 
thority ; and that you do not suffer any settlements to be 
made with the above titles, or any new settlements to 
be begun on any pretense whatever, and that you pull 
down as fast as any persons shall presume to build up, 
and that you do seize and send down the country all 
persons who shall be endeavoring to settle among the 
savages." 



70 MICHIGAtf. 

And he adds with good reason : — 

" I imagine the Indians will be set up to talk to you 
on these subjects ; you will answer them that the king 
is tender of their property, and has made regulations 
to prevent their being cheated and defrauded ; that his 
majesty has been induced to make these rules upon the 
frequent complaint of the Indians against the white peo- 
ple, who have defrauded them of their lands by making 
a few of them drunk, and getting them in that condi- 
tion to give away their country, to the great disgust 
of the rest of the nations ; and that by such means the 
Indians have represented the white people have taken 
great part of their hunting grounds. This has hap- 
pened to many Indian nations, and unless you stop it at 
the beginning at the Detroit, the same thing will hap- 
pen there." 

If the government orders for the protection of 
the Indians had been accompanied by regulations 
for the gift or sale to actual settlers of the lands 
to which the Indian title had been extinguished, 
they would have indicated a wisdom on the part 
of those in authority of which there had as yet 
been little evidence in the management of colonial 
affairs. But up to this time America had been to 
British statesmen simply a vast domain existing 
and to be managed for the benefit of Britain her- 
self, and the question of its management pre- 
sented only the problem in what manner it could 
best be made to contribute to the wealth and 
glory of the imperial island which owned it; 



BRITISH POLICY IN THE NORTHWEST. 71 

What would be best for America itself ; what 
would best promote the welfare and prosperity 
of the people who had found homes in that dis- 
tant country, might abstractly be a question of 
some interest, but it was not a question which 
British statesmanship of the day deemed it neces- 
sary to take into consideration. It was not en- 
tirely certain that it was for the interest of Great 
Britain that there should be a further extension 
of settlements in America, especially in that part 
of America which was drained by the St. Law- 
rence. The trade in furs and peltry which, even 
when shared with France had been largely profit- 
able, was now wholly in English hands, and if 
nothing were done to check its natural supplies, 
there was reason to expect it would now be more 
remunerative than ever. But to open the coun- 
try for settlement was to destroy or drive out 
the animals upon whose abundance the trade de- 
pended, and must immediately diminish and in 
the end destroy this profitable industry. It might 
be thought, perhaps, that there was something 
unnatural and inhuman in preserving for wild 
animals the territory by the settlement of which 
the poorer classes of Britain might greatly bet- 
ter their own condition ; but the preservation of 
forests for game was in the line of British tradi- 
tions and practice, and so long as the nation per- 
mitted a considerable portion of the home country 
to be kept from cultivation, to gratify a passion 



Y2 MICHIGAN. 

for the chase, it was not likely to let sentimental 
considerations interfere with the preservation for 
profitable hunting of this distant wilderness.^ 

Another reason also had its influence in re- 
straining any active encouragement of settlements 
in the interior. As matters now were, the colo- 
nies were dependent upon the mother country for 
all the more important manufactures, and they 
furnished a large and profitable market for which 
public opinion would expect from the govern- 
ment a fostering and protecting care. But as the 
colonies increased in population and wealth, and 
pushed farther and farther into the wilderness, 
this dependence must diminish. Manufactures 
would spring up to supply the local wants, and 
the people would be taught an undesirable reli- 
ance upon themselves and their own resources. 
The period was one when narrow and selfish ideas 
controlled the policy of governments; Detroit, like 
other frontier settlements, suffered from them, 
and it was kept in the condition of a mere trad- 
ing post, stationary in population and importance, 
until America, in the struggle for political liberty, 
had burst the chains which fettered industry and 
enterprise. 

In the treaty with Pontiac, that "King and 
Lord of all the Country " had ceded to the crown 

' For a full illustration of this policy, as exhibited by the action 
of the Hudson Bay Company, in relation to the Oregon question, 
see Barrows's Oregon, American Commonwealths Series. — Ed. 



THE INDIAN AND HIS LAND. 73 

the land between Detroit and Lake St. Clair. 
As sovereign he doubtless had authority to make 
this cession ; but he made grants at the same time 
to individuals, the competency of which would 
seem more questionable. The chieftain of an In- 
dian tribe was not proprietor of the soil, and 
there was no known custom which authorized him 
to convey away the lands of the tribe to persons 
not members of or adopted into it. Moreover, 
the proclamation of the British king had forbid- 
den the acquisition of the Indian title by private 
persons, and the grants of Pontiac were therefore 
doubly invalid. But nobody cared at the time to 
offend the great chief by questioning his convey- 
ances, and as the new inhabitants who now came 
to Detroit came for temporary purposes only, — 
mostly as traders, — ownership of land for those 
purposes might well pass unnoticed, or be regarded 
with indifference. 

No monopoly of the fur trade existed at this 
time, and any one might take out a license to en- 
gage in it. But with an autocratic and irresponsi- 
ble government entire freedom of trade was not 
to be expected ; something of arbitrary intermed- 
dling was to be looked for, and no doubt the love 
of power, or the passion of avarice, or the desire 
to enrich favorites, often found methods of grati- 
fication at the expense of regular trade and in- 
dustry. 

The absolute and irresponsible character of the 



74 MICniGAN. 

government at Detroit is made specially conspic- 
vious in the manner in which the military com- 
mander made use of the judicial power with 
which he had been clothed. Some delegation of 
that power was perhaps a necessity, and those 
which were earliest made were moderate and ju- 
dicious. At the beginning of 1767 Captain Turn- 
bull, who was then in command, issvied to Philip 
Dejean a commission as justice, but with such 
specification of powers as seemed designed to 
make his court one of arbitration and concilia- 
tion only. But this authority was soon enlarged 
by another commission, in which Dejean was des- 
ignated " second judge," and given cognizance of 
small civil causes. As magistrate, however, his 
legitimate business was small ; the population was 
devoted to the church, and the spiritual adviser 
was oftener than the civil judge the arbiter of 
controversies. But Dejean, who appears to have 
been a favorite of successive commanders, and was 
the incumbent of other important oflBces, did not 
limit his authority to the terms of his commis- 
sions, but unhesitatingly magnified his office to 
meet the requirements of the situation and the 
wishes of his superiors. In three instances, {it 
least, persons were tried before him on capital 
charges and sentenced to execution, and one of 
the trials was attended by such ch'cumstances as 
excited great indignation, and led to a present 
ment by the grand jury of Montreal district. One 



ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT. 75 

Contenciiiau, a Frenchman, and Nancy, a female 
slave, were accused of larceny and attempted 
arson, and convicted ; the woman, it was said, 
was promised pardon on condition that she would 
act as executioner of the man, which she did, and 
was then hanged also. These facts were affirmed 
by the grand jury, who called for the punishment 
of the judge ; but Hamilton, who was then in 
command at Detroit, and was not likely to be 
disturbed by a stretch of power that only took 
the life of a friendless negro, interfered for the 
protection of the judge, and appealed to the gov- 
ernor-general on his behalf, with the ever-ready 
plea for detected official rogues, that he was " a 
man who has made enemies by doing his duty." 
But Hamilton went farther, and took upon his 
own shoulders all the responsibility. He was busy 
just then in directing Indian hostilities against 
the western settlements, and was too useful a man 
to be parted with or to be put on defense for a 
comparatively petty atrocity, and the crime of 
the judge, who now came to be known as " Grand 
Judge of Detroit," was suffered to pass unpun- 
ished. 

General Amherst was succeeded as governor- 
general of Canada by General Murray, and he in 
turn by Sir Guy Carleton, who was in office at 
the opening of the American Revolution. The 
commandant at Detroit was lieutenant-governor 
under him, with jurisdiction over all the north- 



76 MICHIGAN. 

western posts. Carleton was a man of more jast 
and humane sentiments than commonly prevailed 
in his day, but he seems to have had very little 
knowledge respecting the western portion of his 
province, and there is abundant evidence that it 
could never have received much of his attention. 
When examined as a witness before the House of 
Commons in -1774, he was asked whether Detroit 
and Michigan were under his government, and 
he replied, " Detroit is not under the govern- 
ment, but Michigan is." To the further ques- 
tion, whether he looked upon Illinois as a part of 
old Canada, he replied, " I believe so. New Or- 
leans was under the government of Quebec, but 
where the precise district ends I really do not 
know." It is very plain that the governor-gen- 
eral was having very little supervision of his sub- 
ordinates, either at Detroit or elsewhere in the 
Northwest. 

For the most part the period from the treaty 
with Pontiac to the beginning of the Revolu- 
tionary War was without noticeable incident. A 
garrison maintained in idleness ; a governor who 
was at once law-maker, judge, and military com- 
mander, but with little to do in either capacity ; a 
people without political and almost without civil 
rights, an unprogressive town with stationary and 
limited industries, — these were the prominent 
features at Detroit, and such they remained while 
British occupation continued. The assurance va 



TEE QUEBEC ACT. 11 

the capitulation of Montreal that the people were 
to be treated as British subjects never bore satis- 
factory fruit. If this assurance meant anything, 
it must have meant that the people should have 
conceded to them the fundamental rights belong- 
ing to native Britons : the right of security against 
arbitrary arrest and imprisonment ; the right of 
trial by their peers ; the right to be judged by set- 
tled and definite laws. Against anything less 
than this Britons would have rebelled ; but with 
the people of Canada " it fell out that when they 
hoped to enjoy legality under peaceful sway, they 
saw their tribunals abolished, their judges re- 
pelled, and the whole social organization upset, 
to make room for the most insupportable of all 
tyranny, that of courts -martial." But despotic 
sentiments ruled in England, and even the lib- 
erals of the day were little inclined to concede to 
Frenchmen, who were also Catholics, equality of 
rights with Protestant Englishmen. So the state 
of military despotism continued until the mut- 
terings of discontent in the English colonies, and 
the occasional instances of determined resistance 
to royal authority, warned the government that 
danger was impending. Then the Quebec Act 
was adopted, as a measure at once firm and con- 
ciliatory, and which was thought calculated, while 
attaching the people of Canada to the crown by 
removing the causes of just complaint, to give 
warning to the other colonies that resistance to 
authority would meet with stern repression. 



78 MICHIGAN. 

The isolated post of Michilimackinac, now com- 
ing to be known as Mackinaw, acquired excep- 
tional temporary importance through suspicions 
of a treasonable scheme of Major Rogers, who 
had been sent there as commandant in 1765. He 
■was charged with scheming to seduce the Indians 
from the English to the Spanish interest, and to 
hand the post over to the New Orleans authori- 
ties. Rogers was arrested and sent to Montreal 
for trial, but whether he was actually tried is not 
known. He was soon at liberty, but did not re- 
turn to Michigan, and his schemes, whatever they 
were, came to nothing. His subsequent career 
was not honorable, and was well calculated to 
lend plausibility to the accusations of treasonable 
purposes which had been made against him. 

An attempt was made about this time, in which 
Alexander Henry participated, to explore and 
work the copper mines of Lake Superior, of whose 
exceeding richness there had been rumors ever 
since the upper lakes had been first visited. But 
the time had not yet come for such an undertak- 
ing ; the copper mines, which ages ago had been 
worked by the people who ante-dated the Indians 
in America, and which since then had remained 
in neglect and forgetfulness, were only to be 
opened again when improved methods of trans- 
portation should make their working profitable. 
Their day would come when the whistle of the 
steamboat should wake the echoes along the rock- 
bound coast of Superior, but not before. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE NORTHWEST CONQUERED FOR THE 
AMERICAN UNION, 

When France surrendered Canada to Great 
Britain the population of the English colonies in 
America exceeded that of several countries in 
Europe which in former times had wou lasting 
renown in defending their liberties and independ- 
ence against the assaults of more powerful neigh- 
bors. Two millions of people accustomed to a 
share of liberty which was altogether uncommon 
at that period, and schooled by hard necessity to 
independence of action and the use of arms, must 
at any time and in any part of the world be 
a formidable power, and entitled, in all matters 
which concerned their relations to government, 
to a respectful hearing. This must be especially 
the case when their numbers are increasing with 
great rapidity, and when their distance from the 
seat of authority is so considerable that their gov- 
ernment as a discontented people must necessarily 
be exceedingly difficult and enormously expensive. 
But these obvious truths were either overlooked 
or haughtily disregarded, and a course of treat- 



80 MICHIGAN. 

ment for the American colonies at once unjust in 
its essentials and offensive in its methods was 
deliberately entered upon. The Stamp Act as a 
measure of internal taxation, the attempt to collect 
a revenue from importations of tea, the closing of 
the port of Boston, the abrogation of the charter 
of Massachusetts Bay, and the proposal to send 
persons charged with crimes in America to Great 
Britain for trial in certain cases, and to quarter 
troops upon the colonists, were each and all indi- 
cations of settled despotic purpose, and resistance 
to them went on from step to step, until dele- 
gates were chosen to a Continental Congress, 
which, when other measures failed to. secure re- 
dress, was to declare the colonies free and inde- 
pendent states. 

But while the British colonies were preparing, 
with an earnestness that admitted of no doubt 
or question, for an appeal to arms, Canada neither 
participated in the excitement nor cared for the 
causes of it. The Canadians shared in common 
with the people of the other colonies in no tradi- 
tions of liberty; they knew nothing of Magna 
Charta or the Bill of Rights, and they had justly 
been praised by their last French governor-general 
for their docility and "perfect submissiveness." 
These were not the men to resist government be- 
cause denied the right of self-taxation ; king and 
church had their implicit obedience ; and having 
little in common with the sentiments from which 



MATERIALS FOR A STATE. 81 

sprang the American Revolution, and quite as 
little with the men who led it, they were not likely 
to see attractions in martyrdom for political lib- 
erty. The coureurs de hois and voyageurs about 
Deti'oit, French in their gayety and buoyancy of 
spirits, and Indian in their unthrift, their grossness 
of life, and their alternations of excess and priva- 
tion ; the little farmers in their whitewashed and 
vineclad cottages, living a life of easy and thought- 
less cheerfulness upon what they produced, were 
none of them likely to concern themselves with 
theories of political equality, or with questions of 
popular enfranchisement. A certain lot in the 
order of Providence had fallen to them, which 
they found abundant means of making a cheerful 
if not a happy one. The traders indeed were not 
now exclusively Frencli, as they had been a few 
years before ; a few Irishmen and Englishmen had 
come in, and more Scotchmen ; but these seem in 
coming into the wilderness to have found the 
habits and methods of those who had preceded 
them congenial, and they soon displayed in their 
own ways the characteristics of their French 
neighbors. They had their seasons of devotion to 
business, and their seasons of social hilarity and 
profuse expenditure in the enjoyments of the 
table ; their hospitality was unbounded, and they 
delighted equally in the rough athletic sports of 
the day and in the dance and other enjoyments 
of social life. Nothing could be more agreeable 



82 MICHIGAN. 

than the picture handed down to us of the best 
society of the day, and nothing as we look back 
upon it would be impressed more distinctly upon 
the mind than that these agreeable and social 
people were not the men to evolve from the in- 
tellectual warfare of troublous times the foun- 
dation principles upon which may be builded great 
states. 

But the people of Canada had grievances pe- 
culiar to themselves, which they felt at all times, 
and in which people of both sexes and all condi- 
tions participated. One of these concerned their 
church ; they had been promised the unrestricted 
enjoyment of their religion, but the church com- 
plained that its property rights had not always 
been respected, and this, while not a breach of 
the letter of the promise, was felt to be in disre- 
gard of its spirit. But a second and more palpa- 
ble grievance was that of being deprived of their 
ancient laws. If the complaints they made of 
these grievances were more subdued in tone and 
deferential than the complaints by the English col- 
onies of attempted imperial taxation, they were 
not the less sincere or persistent, and they were 
more universally concurred in by the people. 

Accordingly, we find measures for the concilia- 
tion of Canada proceeding hand in hand with 
measures for the punisliment of tlie other colonies. 
The act for the regulation of the affairs of the 
province of Quebec was a measure of conciliation 



OPERATION OF THE QUEBEC ACT. 83 

from which very much was anticipated. The act 
sanctioned in Canada the free exercise of the 
religion of Rome, and confirmed to the clergy 
their accustomed dues and rights, including tithes 
established by the edict of Louis XIV. In all 
civil matters it restored to the people the benefit 
of their ancient laws, it relieved them from the 
operation of the English test acts, and it gave to 
the colony a governing council with powers of 
legislation subject to the king's negative. The 
selection of the members was to be made by 
the king, but a part of the number were to be 
Catholics, and this was a step in the direction of 
political liberty which was peculiarly agreeable to 
the people because of its recognition of their 
church, — a church not tolerated in England, and 
abhorred in the other colonies. The act extended 
the boundaries of the province of Quebec so as to 
include within it all the British possessions from 
the Ohio to the Hudson Bay Territory. 

The Quebec Act had for one purpose to prevent 
the disloyalty of the other colonies from extend- 
ing to Canada ; and the bigoted king, who by it 
made concessions to the Catholics which he would 
peril his crown rather than make in England and 
Ireland, declared when he signed it that it was 
founded on the plainest principles of justice and 
humanity, and that he anticipated from it the 
best effects in calming the inquietudes and pro- 
moting the well-being of his Canadian subjects. 



84 MICHIGAN. 

Mr. Fox would have gone fartlier, and given the 
people an elective chamber. " Nobody has said 
that the Romish belief naturally disqualifies a 
man from becoming politically enfranchised, and 
I for one will never listen to such an assertion. 
No man intimately acquainted with the Catholic 
mind will say that there is anything in it opposed 
to the principles of political freedom. Its aspi- 
rations, though repressed by rulers in Catholic 
countries, exist in the breasts of the people, Cath- 
olic and Protestant alike." But this just and 
manly sentiment of the great statesman was in 
advance of his day. London made an imposing 
protest against the approval of the act by the 
king, and the English colonies included it in the 
list of their grievances against the British crown. 
Much of their complaint was born of the bigotry 
of the time, and may be passed now without 
remark. But some grounds of objection to the 
bill were substantial and permanent. It gave to 
the people no security against arbitrary arrests 
and imprisonments, and the semblance of a share 
in the enactment of law was without substantial 
value. Without the habeas corpus and without a 
responsible participation in legislation, the people 
must of necessity be under a political despotism, 
tempered only by such humane characteristics and 
such sense of justice and right as might be in the 
nature of their rulers for the time being. But 
Thurlow said : " The Quebec constitution is the 



IMPORTANCE OF DETROIT. 85 

only proper constitution for colonies ; it ought to 
have been given to them all when first planted, 
and it is what all ought now to be reduced to." 
Some of the colonies had objections to the Quebec 
Act which were peculiar to themselves. In the 
extension of the boundaries of the province to 
include the territory south of the lakes and north 
of the Ohio, the claims of Massachusetts, Virginia, 
New York, and Connecticut, under their charters, 
were ignored, and ground for controversy and con- 
tention was thus laid which might have become 
serious had not the course of military events soon 
deprived it of practical importance. 

The government at the opening of the Revolu- 
tionary War was represented at Detroit by Colo- 
nel Henry Hamilton, first appointed by Governor- 
General Carleton as his lieutenant ; a man of 
capacity and energy, and thoroughly loyal to the 
service of his king. The post, next to Quebec, 
was the most important in the newly created 
province : it commanded all the upper lakes ; all 
the important points in the country from which 
have since been formed the states of Ohio, In- 
diana, and Illinois were easily accessible from it 
by water highways ; it was the place of largest 
habitual concentration of Indians, and presented 
means for communication and negotiation with 
the savages not equaled by any point in posses- 
sion of the Americans. If the British were to 
employ the savages in the war, Detroit was the 



86 MICHIGAN. 

natural and most convenient point for enlisting 
them in the service, distributing presents among 
them, and furnishing them with supplies ; if they 
were not to be employed, their very neutrality 
would constitute a protection to the British au- 
thority over the Northwest ; for the Americans 
must either respect the neutrality and put a stop 
to the intrusion of settlers upon Indian lands, or 
the Indians on their own account might be ex- 
pected to wage war upon them. 

In all the American wars between the French 
and the English, the Indians had been enlisted on 
both sides, but much the more largely on the side 
of France. To Canada the aid of the Indians 
had always been essential. The population of the 
colony was insignificant as compared with that of 
the colonies in arms against her, and if compelled 
to rely exclusively upon her own resources, Can- 
ada might have been overwhelmed by sheer force 
of numbers. The dependence upon Indian assist- 
ance was, therefore, considerable, and it had been 
effective in enabling the colony to maintain its 
relative importance until the time of final strug- 
gle. On the side of the English the Iroquois Con- 
federacy had generally been found giving valuable 
assistance, but though, after the habitual barbar- 
ity of their race, the Six Nations destroyed, with 
out distinction, men, women, and children, the col- 
onial authorities had never expressly enlisted them 
tor such indiscriminate slaughter, and would will- 



THE INDIANS IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 87 

ingly, bad it been possible, bave restrained tbeir 
belligerent acts witbin the limits admitted by the 
rules of civilized warfare. Nor was Sir Guy Carle- 
ton any more disposed to make use of Indian allies 
for barbarous work, and he declined to sanction 
their being sent beyond the boundaries of his 
province to wage war without restraint upon the 
defenseless American settlements. 

But the Americans had not waited for the In- 
dians to be let loose upon them by their enemies ; 
bad men among them, by the most wanton and 
cruel outrages, had brought upon the West a fury 
of Indian hostility, which was not extinguished 
until a great number of lives had been taken and 
many settlements devastated. In the spring of 
1774 a party of land-jobbers exploring the upper 
Ohio made outcry that Indians had stolen from 
them a number of horses. It was never made 
certain that the charge was true ; many people 
believed it a mere pretense for the barbarities 
■which followed. War upon the Indians was im- 
mediately begun, with determination to slaughter 
without distinction all who should fall into their 
hands. Two were met and killed the same day. 
A larger number who were encamped a few miles 
away were approached in pretended friendship, 
and, as treacherously as ever a savage took life, 
were wantonly put to death. Other like outrages 
followed in quick succession. Among the mur- 
dered Indians were all the members of the family 



88 MICHIGAN. 

of Logan, son of a Cayuga sachem, who bad li^ed 
at Canestoga, and had been the friend and patron 
of Count Zinzendorf, the Moravian missionary. 
Logan himself had become a chief in the Sha- 
wanese country, and wherever he was known his 
pacific disposition and his friendship for the white 
people were also known and recognized. But he 
would have been neither Indian nor human if this 
wanton destruction of his family had not stirred 
his passions to their lowest depths, and made him 
thirst for vengeance. With others who had in 
like manner been wronged he entered upon a 
war of extermination, and the border settlements 
were soon ablaze with their murderous fires. Dun- 
more, the royal governor of Virginia, led an army 
against the Indians, and after a campaign, in 
which little glory was won, a nominal peace was 
made, but not till Logan could say, " I have fully 
glutted my vengeance." It was not possible un> 
der the circumstances that the temper of the In- 
dians should be pacific, or that the nominal peace 
should restore friendship. " Good laws vigorously 
enforced," said Sir William Johnson, " are the 
best guaranty against Indian resentments ; " a sen- 
timent the truth of which is as obvious as its 
humanity. The border maxim has always been 
different ; it is that when the Indian has been 
wronged, the proper guaranty against his resent- 
ments is the rifle ball. 

Neither party is blameless for bringing Indians 



THE INDIANS IN THE REVOLDTIONARY WAR. 89 

into the field in the Revolutionary War. The 
British were first in enlisting them ; but the Con- 
tinental Congress, by action of nearly the same 
date, resolved to take into its service two thou- 
sand Indians, and to pay them a reward of one 
hundred dollars for every commissioned officer, 
and thirty dollars for every private soldier taken 
prisoner by them. This arrangement was as hu- 
mane as any that could have been proposed ; but 
General Schuyler, who was desired to carry the 
resolution into effect, made strong representations 
against it as both impracticable and useless, and 
he prophesied that the aid of the Indians, if en- 
listed, would be uncertain and fitful, and the 
value bear no proportion to the cost. In this, as 
the event proved, he was entirely correct. The 
Indians might, in their savage way, be of service 
in carrying an aggressive war into an enemy's 
country and laying waste his settlements ; but 
such was not the character of the war in which 
the Americans were engaged. They stood upon 
the defensive, endeavoring to turn back the tide 
of war from their own borders, and the lawless 
habits of the Indians and their peculiar methods 
of warfare would not only make their aid embar- 
rassing and wastefully destructive of resources, 
but their very presence would be a constant 
source of alarm and disquietude to the district 
which should be the scene of operations. While, 
therefore, the British might profit by their assist- 



90 MICHIGAN. 

ance, through such harassing inroads upon the 
American settlements as would distract the atten- 
tion and scatter the forces of the military, until 
the incessant and pervading alarm of the people 
and destruction of their resources might possi- 
bly incline them at last to accept peace at the 
cost of submission, the Americans, on the other 
hand, could look for no corresponding advantages. 
Nothing was to be gained by them through raids 
upon the French Canadian settlements ; and In- 
dian allies who submitted to discipline with re- 
luctance, and were impatient of the necessary 
restraints of civilized warfare, were not a promis- 
ing assistance in encountering in the open field 
the disciplined armies of England. Neither were 
rewards which were limited to prisoners alone 
likely to be attractive to them. It was easier to 
take scalps than prisoners, and it was also more 
in accord with their usages and savage instincts. 
On the part of the Americans, therefore, the value 
of Indian assistance would practically be limited 
to such service as they might render against those 
of their own race taking part with the British. 

At Detroit Governor Hamilton saw, or thought 
he saw, how he could make Indian assistance to 
the royal cause fearfully effective. He was so de- 
cided and earnest a partisan that it is not neces- 
sary to charge or even to suspect that he favored 
useless cruelty ; but there is abundant evidence 
that he had no scruples in enlisting Indians to 



THE PRICE OF INDIAN ALLIANCE. 91 

fight after their own methods, or in paying them 
for such effective work as they might accompHsh. 
The effective work which was desired from tliem 
was such as would restore the British authority 
over the western portions of Virginia, Pennsyl- 
vania, and New York ; and this could only be 
accomplished by the destruction of the western 
settlements, and especially those in the valley of 
the Ohio. But scalps were the rewards and the 
trophies of such destruction ; and for these, if their 
effective aid was to be had, the Indians must 
be paid. Hamilton therefore offered rewards for 
scalps, and he was not ashamed to say, in writing 
on one occasion to his superior, " Last night the 
savages were assembled, when I sang the war 
song, and was followed by Captain Lernoult and 
several officers." 

Captain De Peyster was then in command at 
Mackinaw, M. de Rocheblave at Kaskaskia, and 
Mr. Abbot at Vincennes. Captain Langdale, at 
Green Bay, who was extensively known among 
the Indians, was commissioned early in 1776 to 
raise among them a force for the British service, 
and he proceeded promptly in the execution of 
his commission. A considerable force was raised, 
which was sent forward to Montreal under orders 
from De Peyster which charged them with the 
duty of " annoying the rebels wherever you meet 
with them." Several persons who had lived 
among the Indians were also employed by Ham- 



92 MICHIGAN. 

ilton to instigate them to hostilities, and among 
them were the brothers Simon, George, and James 
Girty, who were regularly paid as British agents 
at Detroit, and who personally took j^art in raids 
upon the settlements. The monstrous barbarities 
of some of these men almost stagger belief, and 
force upon us the unwelcome truth that in civil- 
ized society, and within the sound of Christian 
bells, there may be bred and reared savages as 
fiendish in then* cruelty as any the world has ever 
known. Hamilton, in his dispatches to his supe- 
riors, gave them to understand that he should 
send out parties of Indians " to fall on the scat- 
tered settlers on the Ohio and its branches," and 
he selected to lead these raids fit instruments who 
would be troubled by no compunctions and no 
emotions of pity in making the work of destruc- 
tion complete. 

The year 1777 was distinguished by much mili- 
tary activity, of which Governor Hamilton was 
the instigation and the head. In the spring sev- 
eral Kentucky settlements were attacked in suc- 
cession by the Indians, but in each case effective 
resistance was made, and few scalps were brought 
back for the governor's bounty. In July Hamil- 
ton reported that he had sent out fifteen parties 
to raid upon the border settlements, but they 
achieved no considerable success, and only in- 
tensified among the settlers a hatred of the gov- 
ernment which made use for its purposes of this 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 93 

species of warfare. In September Fort Henry, 
at Wheeling, was besieged by a considerable force 
of the governor's Indians, but the defense was 
skillful, heroic, and successful. In the succeed- 
ing year raids were again made upon the Ken- 
tucky settlements, and Boonesborough was for a 
time besieged, but again the besieging party was 
foiled. So far the bounty money of the govern- 
ment had produced no important results. The 
settlers retaliated as they found opportunity, and 
in the destruction of Indian villages and means 
of subsistence the savages had measure for meas- 
ure meted out to them for their own barbarities. 

But this indecisive warfare, the horrors of which 
were experienced by only one of the principal bel- 
ligerents, had results which its instigators little 
anticipated, and was the inspiring cause and the 
prelude to movements which were pregnant with 
mighty consequences. The actors were few, and 
the scene of conflict so far in the interior that 
what was done passed at the time almost without 
observation ; but the future of a vast and fertile 
country from which great states were to be carved 
depended upon what these few actors, in heroic 
but unpretending way, were to accomplish. 

George Rogers Clark was at this time the 
most conspicuous figure in the Kentucky settle- 
ments. He was a Virginian from the mountain 
region ; like Washington he was a land surveyor ; 
and in 1775 and again in 1776 he had visited the 



94 MICHIGAN. 

Kentucky settlements, and made himself thor- 
oughly familiar with their condition. He found 
them without civil government, the jurisdiction 
claimed by both Virginia and North Carolina ; 
but neither State was doing anything to justify 
the claim by giving to the people the benefits of 
protection and government. The settlers them- 
selves claimed to be Virginians, and in mass 
meeting in June, 1776, they chose Clark and 
Gabriel Jones to represent them in the Virginia 
Assembly. But this was without authority of law, 
and Clark disclaimed the election, though he con- 
sented to go as agent, and did his best to enlist 
the interest and aid of the State in the defense 
of his constituents. He had the mortification of 
finding that his solicitations bore no fruit, and 
turning his back upon the authorities with the 
pregnant remark that "a country not worth de- 
fending was not worth claiming," he determined 
to return to Kentucky and initiate a movement 
for the formation of an independent state. The 
council of state were made uneasy by this dec- 
laration ; they knew the hardy mountain sur- 
veyor meant what he said and could accomplish 
what he determined ; and yielding to his resolute 
manner what they had denied to his solicitations, 
they reversed their decision, and forwarded to the 
order of Clark a considerable supply of gunpowder 
for Kentucky use. 

But Clark saw very clearly that all warfare in 



MOVEMENT AGAINST KASKASKIA. 95 

the West must be desultory and inconsequential 
unless the British themselves could be made to 
feel the consequences, and that this could only 
be done by the reduction of the British posts. 
Accordingly, in 1777, he sent spies to reconnoitre 
and report upon their condition, and on their 
return he submitted to Patrick Henry, then gov- 
ernor of Virginia, a plan for the capture of Kas- 
kaskia and Vincennes. The plan was approved, 
the necessary legislation was obtained for the 
attempt, and on January 18, 1778, the resolute 
leader left Williamsburgh to put it in execution. 
" Elevated," he says, " with thoughts of the great 
service we should do our country, . . . the more I 
reflected on my weakness the more I was pleased 
with the enterprise." His modesty was great, but, 
with courage inspired by the occasion, he perceived 
clearly that the opportunity was offered for an 
achievement at once glorious for himself and of 
lasting benefit to his country. With vast difficulty 
and under numerous discouragements he collected 
a force at the Falls of the Ohio with which on 
the 30th of June he started across the country 
for Kaskaskia. The intervening ground was low 
and flat, and covered by luxuriant vegetation ; the 
guide was unfamiliar with the way, and at one 
time lost it; and two days before the point of 
destination was reached the provisions were ex- 
hausted. Nevertheless the intrepid leader of de- 
termined men pushed on, and on the evening of 



96 MICHIGAN. 

July 4th, a day famous in American annals for 
many great events, he surrounded and occupied 
the town, and broke into the fort with such celer- 
ity that the astonished commander had no time 
for any resistance. Assuring the inhabitants of 
the town of the friendship and protection of the 
Americans, he quieted their fears, which at first 
had been greatly excited, and they promptly and 
cheerfully tendered their allegiance to the Amer- 
ican cause. The French settlers of Cahokia, on 
learning of the capture, made haste to follow the 
example of their brethren at Kaskaskia, and an 
Indian force which had been collected in the vi- 
cinity dispersed in fear of an attack. Vincennes 
followed suit, and Clark, with a success beyond 
expectation or reasonable hope, was put in posses- 
sion of these several settlements without the loss 
of a man. 

The whole force with which this remarkable 
achievement had been accomplished consisted of 
but a hundred and eighty men ; and it was so in- 
significant in numbers and so far from support 
that Clark deemed it necessary to magnify his 
strength by circulating a report that a large force 
at the Falls was at his service. This deception 
was the more imperative since a portion of his 
men, thinking their task now fully accomplished, 
insisted upon returning to their homes. Only 
about a hundred remained with him, but the 
French settlers proved true friends, and with their 



CAPTURE OF VINCENNES. 97 

assistance he set about establishing friendly rela- 
tions with the Indians. 

It was startling news which was brought to 
Detroit, that the settlers of Kentucky, instead of 
being driven back beyond the mountains, as was 
expected, had taken the aggressive, and captured 
and were then holding the posts in the Illinois. 
It was not pleasant intelligence for Governor 
Hamilton to communicate to his superiors ; and 
he took prompt steps to retrieve the disaster. 
On December 17th, with a considerable force of 
British and Indians, he presented himself before 
Vincennes and demanded its surrender. Captain 
Helm was in charge with but a single man ; for 
Clark had not been able to spare men for a gar- 
rison. Helm made a show of resistance, and 
Hamilton, who was ignorant of the condition of 
affairs, and desired to avoid bloodshed, offered 
him the honors of war. The terms of surrender 
were accepted, and the valorous captain, with 
colors flying, marched his one man out, not less 
to the surprise than to the mortification of his 
captor. 

The vigor displayed in capturing Vincennes 
bore no further fruit. The Indians soon dis- 
persed, or were sent off by Hamilton on maraud- 
ing expeditions, and Clark, who was soon apprised 
of the condition of affairs, determined to make an 
attempt for the immediate recovery of the post. 
Volunteers swelled his force to a hundred and 

7 



98 MICHIGAN. 

3eventy-six, and with these, early in February, he 
began his march. On February 23d he was before 
the town, having, during the preceding five days, 
waded several miles in water on the " drowned 
lands," often with the water up to the breast. A 
sharp attack upon the fort was at once made, 
which met with vigorous resistance ; but from the 
first the resistance was hopeless, and at noon of 
the following day the post was surrendered with 
all its stores. The men captured were nearly 
equal in number to the force of Clark, but what 
was more important was the capture of Hamilton 
himself. Supplies on their way from Detroit were 
also captured a few days later, and with these was 
taken " Dejean, Grand Judge of Detroit." 

Thus by the invincible bravery of a single 
man, with a force so insignificant and under 
difiiculties so formidable that to cool heads the 
attempt might well have seemed foolhardy, the 
Northwest was conquered and held for Virginia. 
The title of the State was doubtful before, but 
now with " nine points of the law " in her favor, 
she made practical assertion of her right, and pro- 
ceeded to organize the county of Illinois. The 
possession had national consequences of the high- 
est value. To the commissioners who negotiated 
the treaty of peace which secured American inde- 
pendence, it indicated with unerring certainty that 
the true northern boundary of the states was not 
the Ohio, but the line of the great lakes. Oue 



HAMILTON AND DEJEAN. 99 

Virginia surveyor, by his valor and wisdom, had 
secured independence to America, and another 
had given to the Union this vast Northwest, with 
its boundless resources and its brilliant future. 

Hamilton and Dejean, with one Lamothe, were 
sent prisoners to Virginia, where they were put in 
irons for their cruelties, and detained with refusal 
of exchange. The council of state held inquisi- 
tion upon their case, and found " that Governor 
Hamilton has executed the task of inciting the 
Indians to perpetrate their accustomed cruelties 
on the citizens of the United States, without dis- 
tinction of age, sex, or condition, with an eager- 
ness and avidity which evince that the general 
nature of his charge harmonized with his particu- 
lar disposition. . . . That Governor Hamilton gave 
standing rewards for scalps, but offered none for 
prisoners, which induced the Indians, after making 
their captives carry their baggage into the neigh- 
borhood of the fort, there to put them to death 
and carry in their scalps to the governor, who 
welcomed their return and success by a discharge 
of cannon. . . . That the prisoner Dejean was on 
all occasions the willing and cordial instrument 
of Governor Hamilton, acting both as judge and 
keeper of the jails, and instigating and urging 
him, by malicious insinuations and untruths, to 
increase rather than relax his severities, height- 
ening the cruelty of his orders by his manner of 
executing them. . . . That the prisoner Lamothe 



100 MICHIGAN. 

was a captain of the volunteer scalping parties 
of Indians and whites, who went from time to 
time under general orders to spare neither men, 
women, nor children." ^ Dejean and Lamothe were 
suffered to go on parole the following December, 
but Hamilton was detained until October, 1780. 
His connection with the Indian cruelties may 
have justified the hardship of his treatraent,^ but 
Jefferson in his communications with Washington 
assigned other reasons also. " You are not unap- 
prised," he said, " of the influence of this officer 
with the Indians, his activity and embittered zeal 
against us. You also, perhaps, know how pre- 
carious is our tenure of the Illinois country, and 
how critical is the situation of the new counties 
on the Ohio. These circumstances determined us 
to detain Governor Hamilton and Major Hay 
within our power when we delivered up the other 
prisoners." ^ He added that on representations 
of the people of Kentucky of what they had rea- 
son to apprehend fi'om these two prisoners in the 
event of their liberation, assurances had been 
given that they would not be parted with. If, 
therefore, they were not detained exclusively for 
their cruelty, it was their cruelty which excused 
the policy of their detention. 

^ Jefferson's Works, vol. i. p. 226, note. 

2 See the narrative of his captivity, Mag. of Am. History, voL 
Lp. 176. 

* Jeflferson's Works, vol. i. p. 258. 



THE SYSTEM AT FAULT. 101 

But, justly as Hamilton deserved condemnation 
for his cruelties, it is not probable that he was 
conscious of deserving the censure he received, or 
that he was exceptionally cruel when judged by the 
standard of the times. There are proofs that he 
sometimes ransomed prisoners who might other- 
wise have been slaughtered, and showed kindnesses 
where the interest of his cause did not seem to 
forbid. The brutality was in the system, rather 
than in the men who administered it ; a system 
which, in the indignant words of Lord Chatham, 
was "to, turn forth into our settlements, among 
our ancient friends, connections, and relations, the 
merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, 
woman, and child; against our Protestant breth- 
ren, to lay waste their country, to desolate their 
dwellings, and extirpate their race and name with 
those horrible hell-hounds of savage war;" and for 
this the administration was responsible, and not 
the agencies employed to execute its will. Even 
De Peyster, who succeeded Hamilton in command 
at Detroit, and whose reputation has escaped the 
charge of barbarity, is said on one occasion to have 
reproached a trader, who rescued from the Indians 
two female prisoners who were being made to run 
the gauntlet preliminary to further tortures. If 
savages were to be employed, they must be left to 
their savage ways. 

The posts in the lUino's being thus captured 
and occupied, the whole West, if Detroit could be 



102 MICHIGAN. 

seized by the Americans, would be secure from 
further forays under British direction. Mackinaw 
and Montreal were too far away to constitute bases 
of operations against the settlements in the Ohio 
valley, and Mackinaw itself was too exposed to be 
either a gathering place for attack or a secure re- 
treat. The important thing to be now accomplished 
was, if possible, to seize and occupy Detroit. Witli 
three hundred men Clark at the time estimated 
that he could effect the capture, but three hun- 
dred men he had no means of raising, and the 
State could not spare them for his service. The 
impatient soldier declared that Detroit was lost 
for the want of a few men. 

De Peyster was transferred from Mackinaw to 
the command of Detroit, and the post continued 
to be headquarters of plots against the western 
settlements until the war was over. A formida- 
ble force of British and Indians, under the com- 
mand of Captain Bird, was sent out in the spring 
of 1780 upon a mission of devastation, and a 
couple of settlements were captured and a few 
non-combatants slaughtered in the Licking River 
valley; but the force accomplished nothing of 
which its commander was likely to boast. With 
Hamilton gone, Detroit proved more disquieting 
than dangerous. Washington, Jefferson, and Clark 
are found repeatedly planning to equip an expe- 
dition for its capture, but the time seemed never 
to come when the men or the means could be 



THE BRITISH CLAIMS. 103 

Bpared from larger operations on the seaboard. 
But the American occupation of the Illinois coun- 
try had put the hostile Indians on the defensive, 
and the new settlements had such comparative 
peace that they continued to grow and extend. 

When peace came to be negotiated between 
Great Britain and the United States, the British 
commissioner was inclined to claim for Canada 
the boundaries named in the Quebec Act. Mr. 
Secretary Livingston, writing to Franklin, very 
pertinently remarked that as that act was one of 
the laws which occasioned the war, to build any- 
thing upon it would be to urge one wrong in 
support of another. The boundary between us 
and Canada, he said, had been very well ascer- 
tained by grants, charters, proclamations, and 
other acts of government, " and more particularly 
by the settlements of people who are engaged in 
the same cause with us, and who have the same 
rights with the other subjects of the United 
States. . . . Our claims are such at least as the 
events of the war give us a right to insist upon." ^ 
Nothing was more certain than this. The British, 
by the fortune of war, had succeeded in holding 
nothing but a couple of posts on the connecting 
waters of the upper lakes ; all else had been wrested 
from them, and many little communities had made 
their homes in the disputed territory. These were 
Americans, and the United States could not in 

1 Works of Franklin, by Sparks, vol. ix. p. 129. 



104 MICHIGAN. 

honor abandon them. The proper boundary be- 
tween the two countries in this part of the world 
was obviously the line of the lakes, and the 
British commissioner did not strenuously dispute 
it. Great Britain was perhaps the more ready 
to concede the American claims from the fact that 
Spain also was claiming the Ohio valley, and 
likely to make trouble for the nation which pos- 
sessed it.^ 

Thus was the Northwest conquered and secured 
for the American Union. A different result would 
have changed the whole current of subsequent 
American history; how much no one can calculate, 
or has basis for any reasonable conjecture. The 
achievement was of incalculable value to America, 
and it was won with a handful of men by the 
patriotism, unflinching courage, and energy of 
George Rogers Clark. 

1 Secret Journals of Congress, vol. ii. p. 225 ; Works of John 
Adams, vol. viii. p. 18 ; Works of Franklin, by Sparks, vol. ix. 128 
et seq.; Pitkin's Hist, of U. S. ch. 15. 



CHAPTER VI. 

GEEAT BEITAIK RELUCTANTLY SURRENDEES THE 
NORTHWEST. 

The valor and endurance of America had won 
from the mother country an acknowledgment of 
independence, but had not produced a clear con- 
viction that it was secure and permanent. A loose 
Confederacy of thirteen states, without army or 
navy, or treasury, or stable executive, or power of 
any sort to compel obedience by a single person 
to its proper requirements or commands, was not 
a spectacle calculated to excite admiration or to 
inspire confidence. To the thoughtful and disin- 
terested observer it must have seemed probable 
that for want of cohesive force it would shortly 
fall to pieces. The interests of the several states 
were greatly variant, and for that reason amica- 
ble relations with other countries on some subjects 
might become impossible. The Confederacy owed 
a large debt which the states were expected to 
pay, but upon what basis or in what proportions 
it was not possible to secure consent of opinion or 
harmony of aotion. In the treaty of peace stip- 
ulations had been inserted in the interest of Brit- 



106 MICHIGAN. 

ish creditors and American loyalists, which must 
depend for their enforcement on the voluntary 
action of individual states, and the popular op- 
position to these stipulations was in some quar- 
ters so positive and aggressive that enforcement 
seemed quite out of the question. But these were 
not all the discouraging circumstances which the 
patriot was forced to contemplate, and in which 
the enemies of the country rejoiced. The poverty 
of the people, and their manifest inability to pay 
their debts, was in some parts of the country so 
great that rebellion was threatened if the courts 
were allowed to perform their regular functions. 
The Indians also gave occasion for alarm. In 
the negotiations for a treaty of peace they had 
not been included, but had been left to be dealt 
with separately. From central New York to the 
Mississippi they had in general sympathized with 
Great Britain in the late war ; large numbers had 
taken arms in its cause, and Joseph Brant, the 
head chief of the Six Nations, a man of educa- 
tion, of great intelligence and ability, known and 
respected by all the tribes, had held a commission 
in the British army. After the war he had re- 
moved with his own tribe, the Mohawks, to Can- 
ada, that he might be under British, rather than 
American jurisdiction. Brant had a deep sense 
of the wrongs his people had suffered and were 
likely to suffer at the hands of the Americans ; 
reflecting in this particular the general feeling 



THE ENGLISH KEEP BACK THE POSTS. 107 

among them. Under all these circumstances a 
condition of semi-hostility existed on the part of 
the Indians, which gave no little concern to the 
state and confederate governments, and kept the 
new settlements disquieted. 

The action of the British authorities tended 
very greatly to increase this disquiet, and to keep 
up the belligerent condition among the Indians. 
When the line of the lakes had been agreed upon 
as the northern boundary, it had been expected 
that the British would immediately surrender 
possession of Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, and the 
minor posts which fell within the limits of the 
United States. This expectation was not fulfilled. 
Baron Steuben was sent by Washington, in July, 
1783, to the British General Haldimand to receive 
possession ; but on making known his business he 
was informed by that officer that he had received 
no instructions for the surrender of the posts, and 
did not consider himself at liberty even to discuss 
the subject. He was so ungracious as even to 
refuse the baron passports to visit Niagara and 
Detroit ; and the latter was compelled to return 
with nothing accomplished. For this conduct at 
the time there could have been no sound or 
friendly reason. Afterwards, the retention of the 
posts was excused by the failure on the part of 
the states to perform some of the stipulations con- 
tained in the definitive treaty of peace ; and it 
was continued until the ratification of Jay's treaty, 



108 MICHIGAN. 

twelve years later. Meantime there was a lin- 
gering hope that if the American Confederacy, as 
was not apparently improbable, should fall to 
pieces from its own inherent weakness, some of 
the states at least, to secure to themselves the 
blessings of permanent government, might be 
ready to return to their old allegiance, and the 
possession of the posts by the British would favor 
that result. What was certain was that the pos- 
session contributed largely to keeping up the 
hopes of the Indians, and to perpetuating the con- 
dition of hostility. 

In the fall of 1784 the United States had en- 
tered into a treaty with the Six Nations at Fort 
Stanwix, by which that Confederacy was made to 
consent to relinquish all claims to the country 
west of a line beginning on Lake Ontario, four 
miles east of Niagara, thence passing southerly to 
the mouth of Buffalo Creek, thence to the north 
boundary of Pennsylvania, and thence west and 
south along the Pennsylvania line to the Ohio 
River. This treaty had caused bad feeling: the 
Six Nations had objected to entering into it with- 
out the presence and concurrence of the western 
tribes ; but the government had insisted on nego- 
tiating with them alone, and they had very un- 
willingly assented. It was ominous that Brant 
was not present : he felt, as did his people gener- 
ally, that it was unjust to require them thus to 
make a treaty which affected others as well aa 



INDIAN ADDRESS TO THE UNITED STATES. 109 

themselves, without the presence and counsel of 
the parties concerned.^ The terms of the treaty 
were also greatly disliked ; they were vague in 
their references to territory, and more might be 
claimed under them than the Indians had in- 
tended to concede. They especially objected to 
any implication that lands west of the Ohio were 
to be surrendered to the United States ; and in 
December, 1786, a grand confederate council was 
held at the Huron village, at the mouth of the 
Detroit, to consider the grievances incident to the 
excessive claims under this treaty.'^ At this coun- 
cil the attendance was large and imposing : the 
Six Nations, the Hurons, Ottawas, Miamis, Shawa- 
nese, Chippewas, Cherokees, Delawares, and Pot- 
tawatamies, and the Wabash Confederacy were 
represented, and an address to the United States 
was adopted with general concurrence. The ad- 
dress was pacific in tone, and recommended a 
further grand council, in which the United States 
also should be represented, and that in the mean 
time the United States should prevent surveyors 
and other people crossing to the Indian side of 
the Ohio. The address plainly indicated a pur- 
pose to insist upon the Ohio boundary as an ulti- 
matum ; and there is abundant evidence in the 
correspondence of Brant with the British author- 
ities that in this purpose the Indians were con' 

^ Life of Brant, by Stone, vol. ii ch. 8. 
2 Ibid. vol. ii. ch. 9. 



110 MICHIGAN. 

firmed by the advice of Sir John Johnson and of 
Major Matthews, who had recently been assigned 
to the command at Detroit, if not by that of Sir 
Guy Carleton himself, now become Lord Dor- 
chester. The result of the council was not com- 
municated to the United States until July, 1787, 
and the proposed grand council was never held. 
The Indians came together again in 1788, but the 
result of their deliberations remains matter of 
conjecture. 

Meantime the government was endeavoring to 
form treaties with the western tribes. General 
St. Clair was empowered by Washington for the 
purpose, and in January, 1789, he proceeded to 
negotiate separate treaties, avoiding all recogni- 
tion of a confederacy, and all common or con- 
certed action among the tribes. " A jealousy sub- 
sisted between them," he said, " which I was not 
willing to lessen by appearing to consider them 
as one people." ^ This was statesmanship accord- 
ing to the diplomatic ideas of the day : a broader 
philanthropy would no doubt have been more ex- 
pedient, as well as more humane. The object of 
the government in entering into treaties was to 
secure peace, but treaties were powerless for this 
purpose unless they resulted in friendly relations ; 
and it was not possible that friendly relations 
should be established by encouraging, directly or 
indirectly, the tribal animosities and jealousies, oi 
1 St. Clair Papers, vol. ii. p. 113. 



SETTLERS IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. Ill 

by a course of conduct which plainly indicated a 
purpose to profit by them. The excuse sometimes 
advanced, that the white people did not create 
these unfriendly sentiments, was only partly true : 
from the first they had practiced making use of 
Indians against each other, and one of the chief 
purposes which the Indians proposed to accom- 
plish by gathering in grand council was to allay 
tribal jealousies and put an end to wars among 
themselves. The western tribes were incensed 
that the treaty of Fort Stanwix was entered into 
without their cooperation and advice, and a con- 
tinuation of the same policy at this time was cer- 
tain to spread discontent instead of allaying it, 
and to offend more persons than it would pacify. 

Before this a territorial government had been 
given to the Northwest Territory, with St. Clair 
for governor, and settlers began to pour into it. 
Marietta was founded in April, 1788, and Cin- 
cinnati in December of the same year. " Arks," 
bearing one or more families with their household 
goods, were floating down the Ohio, and it was 
evident to the most limited comprehension that a 
tide had set in which, unless promptly checked, 
must overwhelm or drive out the native tribes. 
Nor were the new-comers altogether honest emi- 
grants : lawless characters were among them, and 
instances were not wanting of atrocious outrages 
upon unoffending Indians.^ Thus individual in- 

1 The account which Sir William Johnson in his letter to the 



112 MICHIGAN. 

jnry concurred with national wrong to swell the 
tide of hostile feeling, and in 1790 statistics were 
collected from which it appeared that since 1783 
no less than fifteen hundred and twenty men, 
women, and children had, in Kentucky alone, 
been killed by the Indians or carried away into 
captivity. It is not likely that the Indians, in the 
same period, had suffered less than the white peo- 
ple. 

This condition of affairs could not be suffered 
to continue, and in the autumn of 1790 General 
Harmar, with an army of near fifteen hundred 
men, was sent into the territory to chastise the 
Indians. The chastisement inflicted was received 
by his own army, which was defeated with con- 
siderable loss, and the depredations were renewed 
with greater fury than ever. The Indians also 
sent an embassy to Lord Dorchester, that they 
might learn what assistance, if any, could be ex- 
pected from the British authorities. Lord Dor- 
chester gave them no encouragement whatever ; 
but the tenor of communications made to them 
by Sir John Johnson and others was such as to 
confirm them in their belief that they were right 
in insisting on the Ohio as a boundarj^ ; and, as a 
consequence, "all the efforts made by Washington 
to bring about peace were futile. A year after 
the defeat of Harmar, St. Clair was given the 

Earl of Hillsborough of August 14, 1770, gives of the treatment 
of the Indians in the West will hold good of a much later period 



THE DISPUTE OVER BOUNDARTES. 113 

command of two thousand men, an army thought 
to be ample for bringing the Indians to submis- 
sion ; but in one of the bloodiest fights in the 
history of Indian wars he was defeated and com- 
pelled to retire. This disaster was as unexpected 
as it was alarming : the whole country was made 
uneasy by it, and the Indians became more bold 
in their ferocious depredations. It seemed neces- 
sary that conciliation should again be attempted, 
and the President invited Brant to Philadelphia, 
where lie was treated with great respect, and the 
good offices of the Six Nations were solicited to 
bring about peace with the western tribes. But 
the western tribes were not so much bent upon 
war as they were determined to insist upon what 
they believed to be their rights ; and in a confer- 
ence at the Au Glaize they would agree upon no 
peace that did not fix upon the Ohio as a bound- 
ary. This was reiterated in a formal conference 
had with Messrs. Lincoln, Randolph, and Pick- 
ering, commissioners on the part of the United 
States, in the summer of 1793. " We desire you 
to consider," they said, " that our only demand is 
the peaceable possession of a small part of our 
once great country. Look back and view the 
lands from whence we have been driven to this 
spot. We can retreat no farther, because the 
country behind .hardly affords food for its present 
inhabitants ; and we have, therefore, resolved to 
leave our bones in this small space to which we 



114 MICHIGAN. 

are now consigned. We shall be persuaded that 
you mean to do us justice if you agree that the 
Ohio shall remain the boundary between us." ^ 
But the time when this was possible, if it ever 
was, had gone by ; the commissioners had no 
power to consent to it, and the Indians were 
given distinctly to understand that it was out of 
the question. 

Brant was present at this conference, and from 
a speech subsequently made by him it appears 
that a treaty was prevented by British interfer- 
ence. " To our surprise," he said, " when on the 
point of entering upon a treaty with the commis- 
sioners, we found that it was opposed by those 
acting under the British government, and hopes 
of assistance wei'e given to our western brethren 
to encourage them to insist upon the Ohio as a 
boundary between them and the United States." ^ 
In February, 1794, Lord Dorchester, in a formal 
talk with the Indians, gave them further encour- 
agement. " From the manner in which the peo- 
ple of the United States rush on and act and talk 
on this side, and from what I learn of their con- 
duct towards the sea, I shall not be surprised if 
we are at war with them in the course of the 
present year, and if so, a line must then be drawn 
by the warriors." Simcoe, who had become lieu- 
tenant-governor of Upper Canada, soon followed 

1 See Life of Brant, by Stone, vol. ii. ch. 11. 

2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 358. 



WAYNE'S EXPEDITION. 115 

this talk with the erection of a new fort at the 
foot of the rapids of the Maumee, — an act of 
which the hostile nature was manifest. The In- 
dians were greatly elated, and emboldened to per- 
severe in their hostility, while Washington felt 
outraged, and wrote to Mr. Jay denouncing it in 
unmeasured terms. It was, he said, the most dar- 
ing act yet committed by the British agents in 
America, though not the most hostile or cruel ; 
" for there does not remain a doubt in the mind 
of any well-informed person in this country, not 
shut against conviction, that all the difficulties we 
encounter with the Indians — their hostilities, the 
murders of helpless women and innocent children 
along our frontiers — result from, the conduct of 
the agents of Great Britain in this country." ^ 
And he added that it was in vain for the ad- 
ministration in Britain to disavow having given 
orders which will warrant such conduct, while its 
agents go unpunished. 

But remonstrance was idle, and negotiation with 
the Indians was fruitless, so long as the prestige of 
success in the field remained with them ; and an- 
other campaign was necessary to bring hostilities 
to a conclusion. For its command General Wayne 
was chosen ; and in June, 1794, over the road 
where St. Clair led his army to^ disaster, Wayne 
marched to a bloody but decisive victory. The 
battle of August 20, 1794, was fought in the 

1 Writings of Washington, vol. x. p. 433. 



11.6 MICHIGAN. 

immediate vicinity of the new British fort on the 
Mamnee ; and Major Campbell, who was in com- 
mand of the fort, having witnessed the disaster to 
his friends, addressed to General Wayne an ar- 
rogant and impudent note, expressing surprise 
at the appearance of an American force almost 
within reach of his guns, and inquiring in what 
light he was to view such near approaches to the 
garrison which he had the honor to command. 
The American commander replied that were the 
major entitled to an answer "the most full and 
satisfactory one was announced the day before 
from the muzzles of his small arms in an action 
with a horde of savages in the vicinity of the fort, 
and which terminated gloriously to the American 
arms." And he added that " had it continued 
until the Indians were driven under the influence 
of the fort and guns mentioned, they would not 
have much impeded the progress of the victorious 
army under my command, as no such post was 
established at the commencement of the present 
war between the Indians and the United States." 
Other notes of equal asperity followed,^ in the last 
of which Major Campbell warned the American 
general that he must not approach within reach 
of the guns of the fort without expecting the 
consequences that would attend it, and Wayne 
responded by devastating with fire the land about 
the fort almost to its very gates. 

1 Dillon's History of Indiana, 352-355. 



TREATY OF PEACE CONCLUDED. 117 

This was not the last of unfriendly British inter- 
ference. In October following Governor Simcoe 
was himself at Fort Miami, and in a conference 
with chiefs whom he had invited to meet him he 
endeavored to keep up their faith in British as- 
sistance. He was still of the opinion, he said, 
that the Ohio was their right and title. He had 
given orders to the commandant of Fort Miami to 
fire on the Americans if they ventured to make 
their appearance again. He would go himself to 
Quebec, and lay their grievances before "the great 
man." From thence they would be forwarded to 
the king their father. Next spring they should 
know the result of everything, — what they should 
do and what he would do. And he gave them to 
understand that the next spring the English would 
be prepared to attack the Americans and drive 
them across the Ohio. 

Although Brant joined his advice to the gov- 
ernor's, the speech made little impression upon 
the Indians. They had been looking from fall to 
spring and from spring to fall for twelve long 
years for British assistance, which had never 
come, and they had lost faith and courage. Their 
two great victories had fearfully reduced their 
numbers, and their defeat by Wayne threatened 
annihilation. On Wayne's invitation they met 
him in council at Greenville, where on August 3, 
1795, a treaty of peace was concluded. As Brant 
said, "the Indians, convinced by those in the 



118 MICHIGAN. 

Miami fort, and other circumstances, that they 
were mistaken in their expectations of any as- 
sistance from Great Britain, did not longer oppose 
the Americans with their wonted unanimity. The 
consequence was that General Wayne, by the 
peaceable language he held to them, induced 
them to hold a treaty at his own headquarters, in 
which he concluded a peace entirely on his own 
terms." Large grants of lands were made to the 
United States ; among them one six miles in width 
on the eastern shore of the peninsula of Michigan 
from the River Raisin to Lake St. Clair, another 
on the main land north of the island of Mackinaw, 
six miles in length and three in depth, together 
with the Island of Bois Blanc, " being an extra 
and voluntary gift of the Chippewa nation." All 
claim to the posts of Detroit and Mackinaw and 
the adjacent lands was also surrendered. 

Meantime Jay had negotiated a treaty with 
Great Britain, by one of the provisions of which 
it was stipulated that on or before the first day of 
June, 1796, the British garrisons should be with- 
drawn from all posts and places within the limits 
of the United States. The treaty was ratified 
after a controversy of extraordinary earnestness 
and acrimony, and the garrisons were withdrawn 
according to its terms. On July 11, 1796, the 
American flag was, for the first time, raised above 
Detroit, and the laws of the United States and of 
the Northwest Territory were extended over the 



DEATH OF WAYNE. 119 

Michigan settlements. The occupying detach- 
ment was from Wayne's command, but Wayne in 
person did not reach the town until the following 
month. He then took command of the post until 
November, when he started for the East, but at 
Presque Isle succumbed to a disease which termi- 
nated his brilliant and useful career. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE FOUNDATIONS OF A FREE STATE AKE LAID 
IN THE NORTHWEST. 

At the opening of their struggle for Independ- 
ence, the American States had no common bond 
of union except such as existed in a common 
cause and common danger. They were not yet a 
nation ; they were only a loose confederacy ; and 
no compact or articles of agreement determined 
the duties of the several members to each other, 
or to the Confederacy as an aggregate of all. The 
attempt to agree upon articles of union, which 
should determine rights and prescribe duties, en- 
countered difficulties which for a long time ren- 
dered it abortive. One of the chief of these 
concerned the vast territory lying between the 
Alleghanies and the Mississippi, not yet settled or 
occupied by people of European race, but whicn 
the people of the states were determined not to 
abandon to the king. 

The Confederacy as such could of course make 
no claim to this territory except as an acquisition 
resulting from the war; but it was claimed by 
individual states, and to much of it the claims 



CONFLICT OF CLAIMS TO WESTERN TERRITORY. 121 

were conflicting. This was particularly the case 
with all that part of it lying north of the Ohio 
and west of the present boundary of Pennsylvania. 
New York claimed it under the Six Nations, 
who, by their martial prowess, had established a 
certain undefined and only partially admitted su- 
premacy over the tribes of the region, and who 
had themselves acknowledged subordination to the 
jurisdiction of New York. Virginia, Massachu- 
setts, and Connecticut claimed all or parts of it, 
under the vague and uncertain terms of their 
charters, and Virginia claimed also by virtue of 
the conquest made by Clark under the authority 
of the State and at its expense ; a conquest which 
the State had made complete and effectual by the 
organization of counties and the establishment of 
civil government. The other states did not con- 
cede the justice of these claims. Whatever were 
the rights of the respective colonies before the 
war, none of them had made its claim effective 
by taking possession ; and if the territory was now 
wrested from Great Britain, it must be done by 
common effort and common sacrifices, and if re- 
tained after peace, it could only be as the result of 
a treaty made by the common authority. The ob- 
vious use to be made of the territory after acquisi- 
tion was to put the land upon the market for set- 
tlement ; and it seemed entirely just and reason- 
able under the circumstances that instead of being 
Bold for the benefit of one or more of the states, 



122 MICHIGAN. 

it should be considered a common fund to be 
managed and disposed of for the advantage of all. 
Nor did this seem any less politic than it was just. 
To permit one or a few of the states to appro- 
priate this vast domain to the exclusion of the rest 
would give to it or them such an advantage over 
the others in point of territorial extension and of 
material wealth as would make their preponder- 
ance in the Confederacy dangerous to the rights of 
the others, and might threaten its very existence. 
Impressed with these views Delaware, in giving 
assent on February 1, 1779, to the Articles of 
Confederation, accompanied the act with the dec- 
laration " That this State think it necessary . . . 
that a moderate extent of limits should be assigned 
for such of those States as claim to the Mississippi 
or the South Sea," and further " That this State 
consider themselves justly entitled to a right in 
common with the members of the Union to that 
extensive tract of country which lies to the west- 
ward of the frontiers of the United States, the 
property of which was not vested in or granted to 
individuals at the commencement of the present 
war : that the same hath been or may be gained 
from the king of Great Britain or the native 
Indians by the blood and treasure of all, and 
ought therefore to be a common estate to be 
granted out on terms beneficial to the United 
States." In this Delaware expressed the common 
opinion of all the states which made no separate 



SURRENDER OF CLAIMS TO THE STATES. 123 

claims ; but Maryland emphasized the opinion by 
refusing to ratify the Articles of Confederation 
until the western lands were ceded to the Union. 
This refusal made action on the part of the claim- 
ant states imperative, and New York in February, 
1780, recognized the necessity by giving to its 
delegates in Congress authority to make on its 
part the required cession. Connecticut followed 
in October of the same year by offering to cede its 
claim to the unsettled territory west of Pennsyl- 
vania, but with considerable reservation of lands 
bounded on the north by Lake Erie and on the 
east by Pennsylvania ; a tract since known as 
the Connecticut Western Reserve. For this res- 
ervation the State could advance a claim of very 
plausible equity, based upon the fact that a con- 
siderable tract, which had been claimed under its 
charter with much apparent reason within the 
existing boundaries of Pennsylvania, had been 
taken away by the decision of a federal tribunal 
after much of it had been settled by purchasers 
under Connecticut grants. Virginia, in the De- 
cember following, offered a cession of its claims to 
the territory north of the Ohio, but coupled it 
with a condition that its claims south of that 
river, which were then the subject of much con- 
troversy, should be guarantied. The New York 
delegates, in March, 1781, exercised the authority 
which had been vested in them to give a deed of 
cession, but reserved a right to rescind unless the 



124 MICHIGAN. 

same guaranty was given to New York as to any 
other ceding state. Maryland, thereupon assuming 
that the cessions were so far completed as to ren- 
der the result certain, gave her adhesion to the 
Articles of Confederation. But how much the 
Confederacy had acquired by the public acts so 
far performed was a question of no small moment. 
A committee of Congress reporting the next year 
upon the western claims declared the title of New 
York to be the valid title. As matters then stood 
it was for the interest of the Confederacy to take 
this position, and the report was open to the sus- 
picion that it was made for effect rather than 
from a belief in the soundness of its conclusions. 
Thus matters stood until March, 1784, when Vir- 
ginia again came to the front with a cession quali- 
fied only by a reservation for bounty lands for 
the soldiers who with Clark made the conquest of 
Kaskaskia and Vincennes, and with stipulations 
for the reimbursement of the expenses of that con- 
quest, for the security of the French inhabitants, 
and for the eventual erection of republican states 
within the ceded territory. Nobody could well 
complain of these provisions. Massachusetts ceded 
its claims in April, 1785, and the cession of Con- 
necticut, with the reservation already mentioned, 
was accepted in the following year. By these 
several cessions the Union acquired jurisdiction 
over the territory north and west of the Ohio, and 
title to its unsold lands except as they had been 



PLAN FOR GOVERNMENT OF THE NORTHWEST. 125 

reserved, but subject to such aboriginal rights as 
had not abeady been extinguished by treaties 
•with the Indian tribes. 

The Confederacy had thus acquired a vast do- 
main, upon which there were already living many 
people. These people were without a govern- 
ment; and some provision for this just need of 
the social state was imperative. Such provision 
could now be made by no single state ; it must be 
a confederate act ; for only the Confederacy had 
jurisdiction over the territory. Minds inclined to 
be captious and technical might have interposed 
the objection that the Confederacy, which derived 
all its powers from the states, had not been given 
authority to create subordinate governments. But 
the case was not one to be disposed of on a tech- 
nicality ; the necessity for action was imperative, 
and the broad statesmanship of Mr. Jefferson was 
prompt to recognize and act upon it. Though 
never at any time inclined to liberal construction 
of federal powers, he took the lead in the steps to 
give the people of the territory the benefits and 
protection of government, and as chairman of a 
committee of three upon the subject, he matured 
a plan which, in March, 1784, he reported to Con- 
gress. The plan was comprehensive, for it em- 
braced all the territory of the Confederacy, and 
proposed to divide it into seventeen parts, with 
provision for temporary governments, contem- 
plating the eventual admission of the several parts 



126 MICHIGAN. 

as states into the Confederacy, but with certain 
fundamental principles upon which both the tem- 
porary and the permanent governments were to be 
established. The first of these was, " That they 
shall forever remain a part of the United States 
of America;" the last, " That after the year 1800 
of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude in any part of the said 
States otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, 
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted 
to have been personally guilty." 

This comprehensive plan, thus embodying the 
great principles of perpetual union and universal 
liberty, and proposing to organize all the territory 
of the United States upon them, was reported 
to a Congress representing states, every one of 
which, save Massachusetts, was then slaveholding. 
If adopted and given full effect, it must inevitably, 
within a few years, bring into the Union a suffi- 
cient number of free states to put the slave-hold- 
ing states into permanent minority. It would, 
moreover, so effectually circumscribe the area of 
slavery and interpose obstacles to its extension, 
that if permitted to stand, nothing could save the 
institution from certain and not long-delayed de- 
struction. It seems a bold plan to be proposed to 
such a Congress ; but it expressed the matured 
convictions of Mr. Jefferson, and it had the sup- 
port of the leading statesmen of the Virginia of 
that day. 



THE ORDINANCE OF 1787 127 

The states were not fully represented in Con- 
gress at the time, and the anti-slavery provision 
of the proposed ordinance, though the opposition 
to it was but feeble, failed to receive a sufficient 
vote. In March of the next year Rufus King 
proposed in Congress an entire and immediate pro- 
hibition of slavery in all the territory belonging 
to the Confederacy, but the proposition, though 
exciting, little opposition, was not acted upon. 
Early in 1787, a committee, of which Nathan Dane 
was a member, reported an ordinance drafted by 
him, which received the unanimous approval of 
the eight states then represented in Congress, and 
was adopted on the thirteenth of July. 

This was the immortal Ordinance of 1787 "for 
the government of the Territory Northwest of the 
Ohio ; " immortal for the grand results which have 
followed from its adoption, not less than for the 
wisdom and far-seeing statesmanship that con- 
ceived and gave form to its provisions. No char- 
ter of government in the history of any people 
has so completely withstood the tests of time and 
experience : it had not a temporary adaptation to 
a particular emergency, but its principles were 
for all time, and worthy of acceptance nnder all cir- 
cumstances. It has been the fitting model for all 
subsequent territorial government in America, and 
so far as its provisions have now become custom- 
ary in organizing territories, they may be passed 
without particular mention. 



128 MICHIGAN. 

The significant provisions were contained in six 
articles, which it was declared "shall be considered 
as articles of compact between the original states 
and the people and states in the said territory, 
and forever remain unalterable except by common 
consent." The first of these provided for freedom 
of religious worship. The second was a compre- 
hensive bill of rights ; and in the enumeration was 
included an unusual and very significant provision 
making contracts inviolable. The third should be 
given in the words of the author. " Religion, 
morality, and knowledge being necessary to good 
government, and the happiness of mankind, schools 
and the means of education shall forever be en- 
couraged. The utmost good faith shall always 
be observed towards the Indians ; their lands and 
property shall never be taken from them without 
their consent, and in their property, rights, and 
liberty they shall never be invaded or disturbed 
unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Con- 
gress ; but laws founded in justice and humanity 
shall from time to time be made for preventing 
wrongs being done to them, and for preserving 
peace and friendship with them." The fourth 
declared that the states to be formed from the 
territory should remain permanently in the Con- 
federacy and share its obligations, and that all 
navigable waters and the carrying places between 
them should be free. The fifth provided that not 
less than three nor more than five states should 



THE ORDINANCE OF 1787. 129 

be formed from the territory, and that these 
as they attained a population of sixty thousand 
should be admitted to the Union under republican 
constitutions. The sixth again should be given 
exactly as its author framed and the Congres? 
adopted it. " There shall be neither slavery nor 
involuntary servitude in the said territory, other- 
wise tban in the punishment of crime, whereof the 
party shall have been duly convicted : Provided 
always that any person escaping into the same, 
from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in 
any one of the original States, such fugitive may 
be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the per- 
sons claiming his or her labor or service as afore- 
said." 

In all this ordinance, so full and complete in its 
provisions for government and for the protection 
of individual rights, framed though it was when 
popular notions of government were crude and 
unsettled, not a provision appears — if we except 
the proviso to the sixth article, which concerned 
external relations — which after the lapse of a 
century does not still appear wise and proper; not 
a line which one could wish had been omitted ; 
not a clause which one could desire modified in 
any important particular. For its dedication of 
the territory to freedom credit has been given by 
partial friends to several different persons ; but 
Jefferson first formulated the purpose, and for him 
it constitutes a claim to immortality superior to 



130 MICHIGAN. 

the presidency itself. The one was proof of his 
greatness and far-seeing statesmanship ; the be- 
stowment of the other evidenced only the popular 
favor. The ordinance was the beginning of the 
end of American slavery. It checked at the banks 
of the Ohio the advance of a system fruitful of 
countless evils, social and political ; and the oppo- 
nents of the system found in its mandate of 
uncompromising prohibition an inspiration and 
a prophecy of final triumph in their subsequent 
warfare. 

Tlie convention for framing a constitution for 
the United States was in session when the ordi- 
nance was adopted, and the first Congi'ess of the 
Union recognized and sanctioned the ordinance, 
and provided for the appointment by the presi- 
dent, with the advice and consent of the Senate, 
of the governor, and other territorial ofiicers. 
But before the federal constitution had been rati- 
fied by the states, the Congress of the Confederacy 
had chosen a governor, judges, and secretary, and 
on July 15, 1788, Arthur St. Clair, as governor, 
had in great state made his formal entry into 
Marietta, and inaugurated civil government amid 
the plaudits of the people. Shortly afterwards, 
with the assistance of the judges, he proceeded to 
give laws to the territory. 

But the Ordinance of 1787 did not establish 
immediately a state of universal freedom. Many 
slaves were already in the territory ; some of 



SLAVERY IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 131 

them Africans, brought by settlers from New 
York, Virginia, and elsewhere ; but more of them 
Indians or their descendants. The servants who 
were generally preferred at that day were Indians 
who had been held and disposed of as slaves under 
the French and English governments, and were 
still detained as such. This species of slavery 
was founded upon the assumed right, which the 
Indians had acted upon, of selling their captives 
as the alternative to putting them to death ; and 
it had existed from the early settlement of the 
country. The most of these slaves were Pawnees ; 
that tribe was generally considered by the others 
as degraded, and for that reason the prisoners 
taken from it were more often sold for degrading 
service. Traders purchased them to do the drudg- 
ery of the fur trade ; families procured them as 
house-servants, and Pawnee, or Pani, came to be 
the common appellation given to all slaves. But 
the practice of purchasing them had ceased before 
the territory came into the possession of the United 
States ; and now the question which concerned 
them was whether their bonds were sundered by 
the ordinance. 

The slaves in the Northwest Territory, as re- 
gards the legal questions affecting their liberty, 
might be ranged in three classes ; the first em- 
bracing those who were in servitude to French 
owners previous to the cession of jurisdiction to 
England, and who were still claimed as property 



132 MICHIGAN. 

in which the owners were protected under the 
treaty of cession ; the second, those who were held 
by British owners at the time of Jay's treaty and 
claimed afterwards as property under its protec- 
tion ; and the third, those who since the terri- 
tory had come under American control had been 
brought into it from the states in which slavery 
was lawful. In the case of the first two classes 
the claim of the masters was generally recognized 
as indisputable, and it was always enforced when 
contested ; the third class, when held at all, as was 
not unfrequently the case, were quite as generally 
believed to be held in evasion or defiance of law. 
But such slavery as was then in the country 
existed in very mild form, and no glaring evils or 
abuses arrested public attention, or excited active 
hostility to the institution. The anti-slavery pro- 
vision in the ordinance, therefore, probably for 
this reason more than for any other, was very 
generally treated as having only prospective force, 
and as not designed to disturb existing relations, 
whether originating under French, English, or 
American law. And in this treatment of the 
subject the governor apparently concurred. The 
anti-slavery sentiment of the day was not ag- 
gressive, and it was much less pronounced among 
the people than it was among the leading states- 
men in Congress, who had been active in the Rev- 
olution, and for many years had given thoughtful 
attention to the subject of human rights in all its 



INDIANA TERRITORY. 133 

aspects. By them the elements which go to the 
making of great states had been carefully consid- 
jred, and the most of those who were inchned to 
tolerate slavery at all did so in the expectation 
that it would prove but a temporary evil. But 
the people at large had given the subject little 
attention ; they knew the slaves only as servants 
who seemed to be as well treated as others, and 
they did not pause to consider their status further, 
or to speculate upon the effect of degraded labor 
upon the social or political state. 

Subsequent proceedings made it painfully evi- 
dent that the public sentiment on the subject of 
slavery was not well advanced. By act of Con- 
gress of May 7, 1800, the Northwest Territory 
was divided and Ohio set off, the remainder re- 
ceiving a government under the name of Indiana. 
The boundary line between Ohio and Indiana ran 
from the mouth of the Kentucky River to Fort 
Recovery, and thence due north to Canada, thus 
assigning the eastern portion of Michigan to Ohio. 
But this arrangement did not long continue ; 
Ohio in 1802 formed and adopted a constitution 
with more restricted bounds, and by act of Con- 
gress the following winter was declared a state 
in the Union. The territory north of the new 
boundary of Ohio was annexed to the Territory of 
Indiana, which was thus made to include all the 
lower peninsula of Michigan. 

William Henry Harrison was the first governor 



134 MICHIGAN- 

of Indiana Territoiy, and among the subjects to 
which the people invited his early attention was 
their inability under the ordinance to acquire and 
hold slaves. Many of them had come from slave- 
holding states and were accustomed to slave labor ; 
and it seemed to them a hardship that they should 
be deprived of it. But the inhibition of slavery 
discouraged immigration, and in many ways, as 
the people thought, hindered the development of 
the resources of the country. A popular con- 
vention held in 1802, presided over by the gov- 
ernor himself, adopted a petition to Congress 
which prayed for a temporary suspension of the 
anti-slavery article. The petition was received 
with respect, and referred for consideration to a 
committee of which John Randolph was chair- 
man, but it found no favor with the committee, 
and received no further attention from Congress. 
" The rapid population of the State of Ohio," 
said Mr. Randolph, reporting upon it, "sufficiently 
evinces, in the opinion of your committee, that 
the labor of slaves is not necessary to promote 
the growth and settlement of colonies in that re- 
gion ; that this labor, demonstrably the dearest of 
any, can only be employed in the cultivation of 
products more valuable than any known to that 
quarter of the United States ; that the committee 
deem it highly dangerous and inexpedient to im- 
pair a provision wisely calculated to promote the 
happiness and prosperity of the northwestern 



SLAVERY IN INDIANA DEFEATED. 135 

country, and to give strength and security to that 
extensive frontier. In the salutary operation of 
this sagacious and benevolent restraint, it is be- 
lieved that the inhabitants of Indiana will, at no 
very distant day, find ample remuneration for a 
temporary privation of labor and of emigration." 
So Virginia stood firm in her purpose to preserve 
for freedom the domain which had been pledged 
to it by her early and wise policy. 

The petitioners were not discouraged by this 
first rebuff, but renewed their application ; and in 
two successive Congresses reports of committees 
were obtained favorable to their views. For un- 
explained reasons upon neither of these was action 
taken. A third favorable report was obtained in 
1807, which recommended a suspension for ten 
years from the succeeding January, but this also 
was ignored by Congress. In the autumn of 1807 
Governor Harrison united with the legislature in 
renewing the request for suspension ; but this time 
a select committee reported against it, and the at- 
tempt to secure this change in the organic law, so 
long and so persistently urged, became evidently 
hopeless, and was at last abandoned. Albert Gal- 
latin truly said to Badollet, " If you have had a 
share in preventing the establishment of slavery 
in Indiana, you will have done more good to that 
part of the country at least than commonly falls 
to the share of man." ^ 

1 Life of Gallatin, by Adams, 406. 



136 MICHIGAN. 

While this last petition was pending in Congress 
legal proceedings arose in Michigan which called 
for authoritative examination of the whole subject 
of slavery in that territory. As there were some 
slaves on both sides the national boundary, cases of 
fleeing from servitude sometimes occurred which 
led to bad blood, and an attempt was made to 
secure territorial legislation for restoring fugitives 
from Canada, but the necessary vote in the legis- 
lature could not be secured. Several persons held 
as slaves by masters residing in the territory also 
demanded their freedom on writs of habeas cor- 
pus ; and these were made returnable before the 
chief justice, who gave the subject careful ex- 
amination. In the case of one held as a slave 
at the date of Jay's treaty, there was no difficulty 
in deciding that the relation was still lawful ; but 
as to others the judgment was different. The 
arguments made on behalf of the masters are not 
preserved ; but it is manifest from the opinion 
that the discussion took a wide range, and that 
the competency of the legislation which undertook 
to prohibit in the territories what was permitted 
by the states was questioned. But the chief jus- 
tice met the case squarely, and declared that in 
cases not covered by treaty slavery could not exist 
in the territory, either, 1, by the law of nations ; 
or, 2, by the common law ; or, 3, by domestic leg- 
islation. And he then proceeds to say : — 

"In some parts of the United States, and in some 



SETTLEMENT OF SLAVERY CONTROVERSY. 137 

parts also of the British dominions, a judicial character 
could not lay down these positions; and he must cer- 
tainly feel a strong sense of shame for his country that 
she does not permit him ; as on the contrary every Eng- 
lishman feels and must feel a very just pride of country 
when he reflects on the position laid down by Lord 
Mansfield. 

" But in this part of her dominions my country does 
enable me to lay down this position, and to act upon it, 
with a very slight exception, and that entirely in favor 
of British settlers by virtue of a special treaty. In 
other respects her will is there shall be ' neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude ' in this territory. I am, there- 
fore, bound to say and do say, that a right of property 
in the human species cannot exist in this territory 
except as to persons in the actual possession of British 
settlers in this territory on 16th June, 1796, and that 
every other man coming into this territory is by the law 
of the land a freeman, unless he be a fugitive from law- 
ful labor and service in some other American state or 
territory ; and then he must be restored." ^ 

There was no appeal from this decision, and it 
settled the controversy finally for this part of the 
country. It will be remarked that no notice was 
taken of cases which might have arisen under the 
French cession; but the great lapse of time had 
made the question under that treaty of historical 
importance only. 

Illinois, after it had come to be a state, was 
destined to be the theatre of a pro-slavery agita- 

1 MSS. opinion in possessioa of Michigan Historical Society. 



138 MICHIGAN. 

tion, which was carried on with no little acrimony, 
and with every appearance for a time of probable 
success. The question then made was compli- 
cated, for it involved both congressional and state 
action. The State had been admitted to the 
Union under a constitution adopted by the people, 
and subject to change only by the people, and 
which prohibited slavery. The anti-slavery article 
in the Ordinance of 1787, being one of "compact 
between the original states and the people and 
states in the said territory," and " forever unal- 
terable except by common consent," would stand 
in full force even if the constitution were amended, 
unless by the consent of Congress it was abrogated 
or suspended. Thus both the state constitution 
and the ordinance stood in the way of the agi- 
tators for slave labor ; the one must be changed 
by popular voice, the other by the national legis- 
lature. In the year 1823 the attempt was made 
to secure an amendment to the constitution. Had 
the attempt succeeded, and had that great state 
as a political force been arrayed for the extension 
and perpetuity of slavery, the current of subse- 
quent American history and the probable destiny 
of the Union would have been altogether changed. 
It was fortunate for the State, for the American 
Union, and for mankind, that the State had in the 
person of its governor a statesman at once far- 
seeing and patriotic, fearless and able, persistent 
in what he knew to be right, and who did not for a 



EDWARD COLES. 139 

moment hesitate when the question was presented 
to him, whether he would yield to a prevailing 
sentiment for the sake of personal popularity and 
a political future, or, on the other hand, would 
allow himself to be the sacrifice to preserve his 
commonwealth from the evils of slave labor. 

Edward Coles had himself been a slaveholder, 
and had come to the Northwest that he might 
emancipate his slaves, and thus sever all connec- 
tion with a system of labor and dependence which 
to him was abhorrent. When the pro-slavery agi- 
tation began, he took up promptly and fearlessly 
the gage of battle which was cast at his feet, and 
in a struggle deserving of perpetual remembrance 
and praise achieved a victory which was signal 
and conclusive. To his skill, fidelity to principle, 
and unflinching courage it is due that the noble 
commonwealth of which he was executive did not 
even temporarily lose its place in the category of 
free states, and that its onward progress in pop- 
ulation and wealth, and in all the elements of 
greatness, was never for a moment delayed or em- 
barrassed by this attempt to turn back tbe wheels 
of time and take up again the discarded system of 
degraded and degrading labor. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MICHIGAN BECOMES A TERRITORY AND IS GIVEN 
RULERS. 

The Territory of Michigan was set off from 
Indiana on June 30, 1805. It was to embrace 
all that portion of Indiana Territory lying north 
of a line drawn east from the southerly bend or 
extreme of Lake Michigan, until it intersected 
Lake Erie, and lying east of a line drawn from 
the same southerly bend through the middle of 
Lake Michigan to its northern extremity, and 
thence due north to the northern boundary of the 
United States. 

The settled parts of the territory had then for 
nine years been in possession of the United States, 
but the increase in population had been insig- 
nificant. Some slight addition had been made by 
French families coming in from Canada, and we 
have seen that some enterprising persons of other 
nationalities had come for the purposes of trada 
But with the change in jurisdiction there had 
been some loss of inhabitants also by the removal 
to Canada of persons who had reasons for pre- 
ferring to live under British rule. 



FATHER GABRIEL RICHARD. 141 

Detroit was still the principal settlement. It 
had taken on a certain municipal dignity by being 
incorporated as a "town" by the legislature of 
the Northwest Territory in 1802, but it was still 
a small hamlet, and almost without growth. The 
people, for the most part, professed the Catholic 
religion ; but their piety scarcely went beyond 
profession ; the days of intense zeal had passed 
away, and general indifference had succeeded. 
Since the conquest by England the people had 
been greatly neglected by their spiritual teachers 
and superiors ; and the restraints which had done 
something to preserve their morals in the half 
savage life led by so many of them as hunters, 
trappers, and voyageurs had almost entirely been 
withdrawn. Now, however, they had among them 
Father Gabriel Richard, a faithful and devoted 
pastor, who, under many discouragements, was do- 
ing what he found it in his power to do to restore 
or convert the people to Christianity, and to moral 
and decent lives. 

Father Richard would have been a man of 
mark in almost any community and at any time. 
He had come to America in 1792 at the age 
of twenty-eight, and placing himself at the dis- 
posal of Bishop Carroll of Baltimore, had been 
sent by him first to Illinois, where, without evi- 
dence of much valuable fruit, he labored until 
1798, and was then transferred to Detroit. He 
was a plain man, simple in all his habits, and ab- 



142 MICHIGAN. 

stemious in all his indulgences. In his Christian 
labors he soon perceived that the intemperance of 
the people was likely to prove the chief obstacle 
to success, and to the cure of this he addressed his 
efforts directly, not limiting them to indulgence in 
intoxicating di'inks, but to the use of tobacco also. 
But the evil of intoxication was too deep-seated 
for any one man, however much he might be re- 
spected, to make sensible inroads upon it. It per- 
vaded all classes of society, and was not wholly a 
matter of indulgence of appetite. Witli well-to-do 
people it was to some extent a matter of fashion ; 
with other classes a matter of imitation. Burnet 
has left us a graphic picture of the dinner parties 
given by the fur traders of Detroit, in which 
" they competed with each other for the honor of 
drinking the most, as well as the best, wine with- 
out being intoxicated themselves, and of having 
at their parties the greatest number of intoxicated 
guests." ^ It was thus that they offset the priva- 
tion and suffering of their excursions into the wil- 
derness ; their lives, as another observer said, ^ con- 
sisting in one constant succession of amusements : 
" dances, rides, dinners, card parties, and all the 
et ceteras of dissipation follow in one long train, 
treading each on the heels of the other." It was 
little that the sincere and fatherly advice of any 

1 Burnett's Notes, 283. As to Indian degradation from intoxica 
tion, see Ibid. 389 et seq. 

2 Judge Wm. Woodbridge : Memoir by Lanman, p. 14. 



FATHER RICHARD-S SPIRITUAL OVERSWnT. 143 

piiest or pastor could accomplish with the common 
people when such were the examples set for them 
by the men of wealth, the leaders in business, and 
in society. 

Father Richard did not confine his labors to 
Detroit, but in the summer of 1799 he visited 
Mackinaw, which he found to be a place con- 
taining fifty houses, but where a thousand people 
sometimes congregated. These people also had 
once been nominally Catholic, but the children 
among them were mostly illegitimate ; and it was 
" very painful to see so many poor creatures 
left without instruction, several of them scarcely 
knowing how to make the sign of the cross." He 
was informed that the same condition of things 
prevailed farther on to the northwest " where the 
great Northwest Company of Montreal employ 
nearly seventeen hundred men, nearly all Cana- 
dians." He visited the settlement of the Ottawas 
on Lake Michigan, where he was received gladly. 
He proposed to send a priest among them " for 
their instruction, or at least for that of their 
children," but though they seemed thankful for 
this, and took the offer into consideration, they 
never made reply to it. " The truth of the matter 
is," he is mournfully compelled to admit, " they 
are so much addicted to the use of ardent spirits 
that they care very little about religion. . . . The 
trade there is principally in liquors, and as long 
as this state of things exists there can be no pros- 



144 MICHIGAN. 

pect of making them Christians." He repeats the 
saying of another that the ti'ajSic in English rum 
has destroyed more Indians than the Spanish 
sword, and wishes it could be abolished, but sees 
no hope of it. He returned to Mackinaw, where 
he found ample need for his services, and would 
gladly have remained for the winter ; but duty 
seemed to demand his presence at Detroit, and 
he came back to his regular charge. 

If Father Richard had tasted the " English 
rum " of Indian commerce he would have dis- 
covered, if he did not already know by common 
report, that what was sold to the Indians by that 
name was for the most part neither rum nor any 
other liquor known to civilized trade. It was a 
preparation specially made for Indian use. Two 
gallons of whiskey in a barrel of water, with to- 
bacco sufficient to impart the desired intoxicating 
quality, made an article as suitable for this trade 
as any other. The cost to the dealer was trifling, 
and the profits of the trade enormous. 

The condition of the Sault Ste. Marie at this 
period was quite as repulsive as that of any of the 
fur-trading stations described by Father Richard. 
Mackenzie, who visited it in 1793, said of it, "It 
is dwindled to nothing, and reduced to about 
thirty families of the Algonquin nation, who are 
one half the year starving, and the other half 
intoxicated, and ten or twelve Canadians who 
have been in the Indian country from an early 



CONDITION OF THE WHITE POPULATION. 145 

period of life, and intermarried with the natives, 
who have brought them families." Game was al- 
ready gone, and the Indians lived mainly on fish ; 
but " whatever quantity they may have taken, 
it is never known that their economy is such as to 
make it last through the winter, which renders 
their situation very distressing." ^ Equally dis- 
tressing, and for the same reasons, was the condi- 
tion of the Indians in other parts of the territory. 
That of the white people was substantially the 
same at Detroit and elsewhere. The total white 
population of the territory a,t this time did not 
exceed four thousand, and the fur trade was still 
the leading industry. The number of "settle- 
ments " or farms was found on actual count to be 
four hundred and forty-two, of which more than a 
fourth were at Frenchtown on the Raisin, where 
French families had begun to settle in 1784. A 
few were on Grosse Isle, but the most of them 
were on the Rouge and other streams flowing 
eastwardly. Many of them were locations with- 
out lawful permission on the public lands, so that 
in law the settlers were mere trespassers. In all 
the territory it was believed there were but eight 
good titles to land. The claims were numerous, 
and were derived from various sources, but the 
most of them were either clearly illegal in their 
origin, or had become invalid by reason of some 
breach of condition. But nobody was questioning 

1 Mackenzie's Travels, xxxviii. 
10 



146 MICHIGAN. 

the titles, and the people troubled themselves but 
little about the defects. They were lively and 
gay, if not happy ; they had no feeling of respon- 
sibility in respect to public and governmental 
concerns, and submitted cheerfully and without 
question to the authorities placed over them. 

The government of the territory was already 
outlined by the Ordinance of 1787, which was 
closely followed. The executive was to be a gov- 
ernor appointed by the president, with the advice 
and consent of the senate, and there was to be a 
secretary who would perform the duties of gov- 
ernor if the latter officer was absent or the office 
vacant. The judiciary was to consist of three 
judges, also of presidential appointment. The 
legislature was at first to consist of the governor 
and judges, who were not, however, to originate 
laws, but were to adopt such as were suitable 
from the laws of the original states ; and the laws 
so adopted were to be in force unless disapproved 
by Congress. The whole government thus orig- 
inated in Washington and centred there, and was 
neither derived from the people governed nor 
responsible to them. But as yet the interest of 
the United States in the territory was greater 
than that of all the people in it. The nation 
was proprietor of the soil, and was charged with 
the duty of protecting a long line of frontier, 
where the people who were subject to its jurisdic- 
tion were in the main aliens in language and 



CHARACTER OF THE EARLY RULERS. 147 

feeling, and in sympathy rather with the people 
across the border than with those with whom by 
the fortune of war they had come into political 
association. A temporary government originating 
at Washington was, therefore, a political neces- 
sity ; but the organic act provided that so soon as 
there should be five thousand free male inhab- 
itants of full age in the territory, they should elect 
delegates to a general assembly, who, with a ter- 
ritorial council of five, to be selected by Congress 
from ten names nominated to it by the general 
assembly, should constitute the legislative body. 
The legislature would, therefore, be representative 
of the people in both houses, but the veto of the 
governor was to be absolute. 

If the wisdom of the president in his appoint- 
ments had been equal to that of the legislation, 
the early history of the territory would have been 
more orderly, and, perhaps, more prosperous also. 
But Mr. Jefferson, with singular want of tact and 
judgment, sent to this distant frontier territory 
as rulers for its rough and peculiar population a 
number of persons who were not only ignorant of 
this part of the country and of its people, but 
were without practical acquaintance with similar 
communities elsewhere. It was not to be ex- 
pected, therefore, that they would readily and 
easily come into sympathetic and cordial relations 
with the people they were to govern. Some of 
them also had personal peculiarities and deficiencies 



148 MICHIGAN. 

which would render entirely improbable a success- 
ful and orderly administration of their offices. 

General William Hull of Massachusetts was the 
selection for governor. He had an excellent and 
well-deserved reputation, and in point of charac- 
ter and standing the appointment was altogether 
suitable. He had early entered upon service in 
the War for Independence, participating in many 
important battles with credit, and continuing in 
the service until the surrender of Cornwallis. 
Steuben had selected him for his assistant in the 
work of army reorganization, and when the war 
was over, and Steuben's mission to obtain the sur- 
render of the western posts had failed, he had 
himself been charged with a similar mission, which 
also proved unsuccessful, and he then took part in 
the suppression of Shays's Rebellion. In 1793 
he was again sent to Canada ; this time to bring 
to the attention of the authorities the manner in 
which the hostile Indians were furnished with the 
supplies that enabled them to continue their de- 
structive depredations. Subsequently he traveled 
in Europe for observation and mental improve- 
ment, and on his return was made judge of the 
Court of Common Pleas of his native state. 

This highly honorable record was without a 
stain, and that of his whole subsequent life would 
probably have been equally untarnished and en- 
viable had he declined to accept the appointment 
of governor of this territory when it was tendered 



HULL'S CHARACTER. 149 

to him. He was at this time fifty-two years of 
age and inclined to corpulency; he had all his life 
lived in the smiles of public favor, and his do- 
mestic and social relations were agreeable ; and 
had he been made the executive of a staid and 
orderly commonwealth, with associates in govern- 
ment of similar characteristics, his administration 
might have been altogether popular and success- 
ful. But in Michigan he found uncongenial peo- 
ple all about him, and it soon appeared that 
he was somewhat lacking in the persistent self- 
assertion necessary to make the rough characters 
of a backwoods settlement recognize and accept the 
fact that within the proper limits of his authority 
he proposed to be and would be ruler and master. 
Had the other territorial officers yielded him the 
deference and respect which was due to his char- 
acter and station, their example would, in all prob- 
ability, have been followed by the general public, 
and his administration might then have had a fair 
measure of success. But the governor was pecul- 
iarly unfortunate in having in one of the judges 
a person of characteristics much more pronounced 
than his own, and with not only the power but 
the will, as subsequently appeared, to embarrass 
and embitter his whole official life. This was 
Augustus B. Woodward, who was sent on from 
Washington as chief justice. 

The chief justice was pronounced by one of his 
subsequent associates to be "a wild theorist, fit 



150 MICHIGAN. 

only to extract sunbeams from cucumbers ; " but 
this characterization presents only one side of his 
erratic and peculiar nature. He was a theorist, 
but not a mere dreamer ; his ability was very con- 
siderable, and, in some respects, very substantial. 
In doing what he chose to do he was perfectly 
fearless, and he succeeded, through the use of his 
official authority, in dominating public affairs 
during the whole period of Hull's administration. 
He was as eccentric as he was able, and his auda- 
city kept him continually in the public eye, and 
made him, until the war came on, the most con- 
spicuous figure in territorial affairs. Mr. Jefferson 
had given him for associates Frederick Bates and 
John Griffin, both Virginians ; but Bates had 
already been in the territory for some little time 
as an official of the land office, and he alone of 
all the territorial officers possessed the important 
qualification for his post, — that he knew the coun- 
try and knew its people. And it may be added 
here that he alone of them all had a subsequent 
career that was satisfactory and altogether honor- 
able. He was not long in discovering that his 
official relations were to be unpleasant, and he re- 
signed his office and left the territory for con- 
spicuous public service in Missouri. Judge Griffin 
remained at his post ; but his ofiicial life was not 
a happy one, and years afterwards he complained 
that he was made the mere drudge of the chief 
justice to do his will. 



HULL'S JOURNEY TO MICHIGAN. 151 

The journey of Governor Hull to take possession 
of his government was well calculated to impress 
him with its exposed condition, and with its vast 
distance from friendly support in case an emer- 
gency should arise which made assistance neces- 
sary. From Albany his route was by way of 
Lake Ontario, which he traversed in boats with his 
family. Reaching Niagara he proceeded thence 
to Buffalo, where he found a vessel in which he 
could take more comfortable passage to Detroit. 
But before he reached the lakes he had left civil- 
ization behind, and whether he turned to the right 
hand or to the left he beheld a wilderness still 
inhabited by savages. To the north of the lakes, 
too, the territory was the property of Great Britain, 
a country with which the relations of the United 
States were at the time far from cordial. It was 
inevitable that the governor should have received, 
upon his long and tedious journey, impressions of 
the exposed condition of the territory which abided 
with him until the great crisis of his life and 
helped then to unman him. 

But the circumstances of the governor's recep- 
tion at Detroit were not calculated to remove un- 
pleasant impressions or to give augury of official 
ease and enjoyment. It is not improbable that 
the veteran soldier who had consented to take up 
his abode in the far interior as governor of the 
new-born territory expected to be received with 
acclamations, and to make triumphal entry, as 



152 MICHIGAN. 

St. Clair had done, into his capital ; but when on 
the first day of July, 1805, he came in sight of 
the town he found nothing but the smoking em- 
bers of desolated homes, and tents set up here 
and there in which a portion of the people had 
found temporary shelter. The story the people 
had to tell was a sad one. On the eleventh of 
the preceding month fire had broken out in the 
densely compacted settlement, and it had spread 
right and left, to be stayed only when there was 
nothing left for it to consume. Public build- 
ings and private alike were gone ; only a ware- 
house and a bakery had escaped destruction. The 
spectacle was disheartening. Instead of finding 
his people well housed and comfortably circum- 
stanced, as he expected, the governor found them 
objects of charity, living in their canvas habita- 
tions, or provided for in the outside settlements. 
A beginning had been made of putting up log- 
houses, but the gloom of the great desolation was 
still upon the people, and it could not immediately 
be driven away. 

Obviously the first duty of the new ofiicials was 
to do what should lie in their power to give relief 
to the homeless and needy people. The rebuilding 
of the town must be aided, and the people must 
have lots upon which to erect their habitations 
and business houses. Fortunately, in providing 
for their relief it was possible to convert the pres- 
ent calamity into a permanent blessing. The old 



MEASURES FOR RELIEF OF THE PEOPLE. 153 

town had been constructed with special view to 
protection against the Indians ; it was compact 
that it might be the more easily fortified ; its 
streets were mere lanes ; it was too crowded for 
comfort, for health, or for business. Some day it 
would have become necessary to plan the town 
anew, and to make suitable streets by the destruc- 
tion of the buildings at great expense to the 
public. But now accident had removed the build- 
ings as if by providential design ; and the bare* 
earth invited the suitable plan, and was incum- 
bered by no obstacles. 

In seeking relief for the people, the governor 
and the chief justice found themselves able to 
cooperate ; and they agreed that the destruction 
of improvements presented a strong case for the 
equitable consideration of Congress. Both of them 
took the long journey to Washington to impress 
their views upon the national legislature, and 
their success was reasonably satisfactory. Con- 
gress recognized the justice and policy of providing 
homesteads for the sufferers by the fire ; and an 
act was passed making the governor and judges a 
land board, with authority to lay out a town, and 
to convey a lot therein to every person over 
seventeen years of age who, at the time of the 
fire, had owned or inhabited a house in the old 
town. This enabled them all to become free- 
holders, where before they had had a merely tol- 
erated occupancy. 



154 • MICHIGAN. 

But the efforts on behalf of the settlers were 
not restricted to those who had suffered in the 
destruction of the town. The propriety of recog- 
nizing and confirming all actual possessions was 
strongly urged upon Congress, and with such suc- 
cess that under proper legislation the people of 
the outside settlements soon became owners of 
the legal title to the lands they had occupied 
and brought under cidtivation, and were thus 
encouraged to make lasting and valuable improve- 
ments. 

Next to looking after the immediate needs of 
the homeless people, the preparation of a code 
of laws demanded the attention of the governor 
and judges. For this purpose they met from day 
to day, and adopted distinct acts on different sub- 
jects as occasion seemed to require. The chief 
justice was commonly the draftsman ; and the 
several acts were printed together, and in popular 
speech were collectively known as the Woodward 
Code. 

The plan of the new town was also the produc- 
tion of the chief justice, and he had made one that 
was his pride and his glory. To some extent it 
was modeled upon that of the national capital ; 
and though he succeeded in securing its adoption, 
it was the subject of much contemporaneous ridi- 
cule, not only for what seemed to the jDCople its 
whimsical character, but also for its magnificent dis- 
tances. It had its Campus Martins and its Grand 



THE CHIEF JUSTICE'S BANK. 155 

Circus, with broad avenues radiating from these 
into the woods, — avenues which the fertile imagi- 
nation of its author saw, in the near future, lined 
with elegant dwellings and stately public and 
private edifices. But the matter-of-fact people of 
the day saw only a visionary plan for an immense 
meti'opolis on paper, prepared by an eccentric 
enthusiast for a town which had been more than 
a hundred years in attaining the proportions of a 
respectable village ; and which, so far as could be 
seen, had nothing in immediate prospect calcu- 
lated to give its growth any considerable impetus. 
The plan, therefore, was ridiculed while it was 
tolerated, but it was not strictly adhered to, and 
the departures from it, from time to time, an- 
noyed its author, and were a frequent incitement 
to ill-temper and controversy. 

The chief justice had more occasion for annoy- 
ance in the refusal of Congress to sanction his 
scheme for a great bank. He had planned for a 
bank with a capital of four hundred thousand dol- 
lars, which Boston parties were expected to furnish 
for nominal use in the fur trade. So confident 
were he and his associates of entire success in the 
scheme, that a bank building was erected and all 
preparations made for beginning business before 
the charter was granted. But the chief justice 
was at this time the effective force in the legis- 
lature : it was only necessary for him to draft the 
bill he desired, and to present it to the others for 



156 MICHIGAN. 

their signature. The bank was soon in operation, 
with the chief justice for president ; and it was 
charged at the time that the governor was con- 
cerned with him in interest ; but this was denied, 
and the probability seems to be that the governor 
abandoned a purpose which he had once formed 
to that effect. 

A bank in the vastness of its pretensions so out 
of proportion to the insignificant town where it 
was to do business, and having the chief legislative 
and judicial officer of the territory for its manager, 
was naturally the subject of unfavorable criticism, 
and the parties concerned were severely attacked 
in such newspapers as circulated in the territory. 
Congress refused to sanction the scheme, and the 
charter became of no force ; but the bank, never- 
theless, went on as before, until, in September, 
1808, in the absence of the chief justice from the 
territory, the other members of the legislature 
summoned courage to pass an act denouncing 
severe penalties upon unauthorized banking. The 
bank officers petitioned for exemption from these 
penalties, but were refused. 

From this time the governor and the chief 
justice were in avowed hostility ; and as one of the 
associate judges took sides with the governor and 
the other against him, the meetings of the four, 
whether as a land board or as a legislature, were 
occasions for undignified and angry contests and 
dissensions which were well calculated to bring 



TEE CHIEF JUSTICES ARISTOCRACY. 157 

public authority into contempt. It does not ap- 
pear that the governor was wanting in proper 
observance of the proprieties of his station, or of 
the rules of law ; but his antagonist was less 
scrupulous, and by his very audacity not only for 
the most part carried his points, but also carried 
with him an apparent public sentiment. He was 
mgenious in finding ways to annoy and mortify 
the governor, and his own misbehavior furnished 
opportunities when nothing else did. He did not 
hesitate, on one occasion, to stretch his prerogative 
to the extent of fining a citizen as for contempt 
of court for offensive language to himself in the 
public street, — an outrage on the law which the 
governor undertook to redress by the issue of a 
pardon. But the grand jury of the territory made 
a presentment denying that the governor pos- 
sessed the power of pardon, and censuring his 
usurpation ; and the chief justice, thereupon, not 
only treated the pardon as void, but proceeded to 
enforce his own illegal judgment. What was 
more extraordinary still, the grand jury at the 
instigation of the chief justice presented as un- 
necessary and a " nuisance " certain legislation 
ivhich had been adopted when that functionary was 
absent. Fortified by this presentment the chief 
justice and his echo in the court treated the offen- 
sive legislation as a nullity. Evidently the gov- 
ernor had more than a match in his daring and 
unscrupulous antagonist. 



158 MICHIGAN. 

But other causes were troubling the governor 
also. He was Indian agent as well as executive ; 
and he had come to the territory with some idea 
that in his capacity of agent he might be of signal 
service, both to the territory and to the Indians. 
For the benefit of the territory he proposed to 
take steps for the extinguishment of the Indian 
title as rapidly as it might be accomplished with- 
out causing discontent to the tribes. To benefit 
the Indians he proposed to have them taught 
agriculture and the mechanic arts. He soon per- 
ceived, however, that plans made by a New Eng- 
land fireside for the amelioration of the aboriginal 
condition lacked fitness of adaptation to circum- 
stances when presented for actual test, and that 
civilized agriculture and mechanic arts were the 
last things the savages cared to learn. We hear 
nothing of his philanthropic purposes after he 
came to his government ; and when he opened ne- 
gotiations for cessions of territory, he discovered 
an entire absence of a disposition to respond fa- 
vorably. On the contrary he found the opposition 
decided and persistent. The Indians about Mack- 
inaw refused to attend any council, declaring that 
if their brothers below were fools enough to throw 
away their lands, they might do so; but for them- 
selves they were determined that the governor 
must not think of taking away one hair's breadth 
of their lands, for they had not so much to spare. 
The governor did succeed, however, in obtain- 



TEE INDIANS IN CONTACT WITH THE WHITES. 159 

ing, in 1807, a cession of all that portion of the 
territory not before ceded which was bounded on 
the west by the principal meridian, and extended 
on the north to the line of White Rock in Lake 
Huron. 

This was a very valuable acquisition ; and no 
complaint has reached us of any overreaching or 
other unfairness on the part of the governor in 
obtaining it. But ever since their encounter with 
Wayne, the Indian tribes of the Northwest had 
been rapidly sinking into degradation, and the 
most of them no longer exercised much freedom 
of will. In their intercourse with white people 
they were constantly brought in contact with all 
that was low and base in civilized life, with the 
inevitable result of adding to their native vices 
many that were new and in their effects more 
destructive than those they were born to. When 
not on the war-path, or on their great hunts, they 
were easily mastered by their passion for intox- 
icating drinks ; and several classes of white people 
were ready to cater to this passion for selfish pur- 
poses of their own. It was often the case that a 
treaty of cession by the Indians was an arrange- 
ment which scheming persons among them had 
contrived, to bring about for their own interest, 
and which the Indians were made to conclude 
with little volition of their own. Reservations in 
the nature of grants for the benefit of traders and 
interpreters and their half-breeds came to be 



160 MICHIGAN. 

a common feature in such treaties ; and though 
these were always nominally made at the desire 
of the Indians, the management which had created 
the desire was not often such as would bear the 
light. What was said of an Indian treaty a little 
later was already coming to be true. " An Indian 
treaty now lies chiefly between the various traders, 
agents, creditors, and half-breeds of the tribes, 
on whom custom and necessity have made the 
degraded chiefs dependent, and the government 
agents. When the former have seen matters so 
far arranged that their self-interest and various 
schemes and claims are likely to be fulfilled, and 
allowed to their hearts' content, the silent ac- 
quiescence of the Indians follows of course ; and 
till this is the case the treaty can never be am- 
icably effected." ^ 

But the governor, by the time his treaty was 
concluded, saw plain indications that trouble was 
brewing. He heard well - authenticated rumors 
that a prophet was among the Indians throughout 
all the West, practicing his arts and incantations, 
and urging in the name of the Great Spirit, — for 
whom he assumed to speak, — that they should 
league themselves together for protection against 
the white men. A great chieftain was also com- 
ing upon the stage, who perceived very clearly 
that the system pursued by the United States was 
" a mighty water ready to overflow his people ', " 
1 Blanchard'a Discoveries and Conquests in the Northwest, 402. 



TECDMSEn'S POLICY. 161 

and he was laboring earnestly among the tribes in 
the effort to form a confederacy " to prevent any 
tribe from selling land without the consent of 
the others." This was " the dam he was erect- 
ing to resist this mighty water." The scheme of 
Tecumseh, even though it had been peacefully 
intended, must necessarily have excited alarm 
among the white people ; for it sprang from a 
feeling of antagonism to their encroachments, and 
must depend for its success upon the prevalence 
of unfriendly sentiments among the tribes. That 
such sentiments were already spreading was per- 
ceived by those who were brought in contact, 
officially or otherwise, with the Indians ; and the 
tendency in that direction increased rapidly as 
the relations between the United States and Great 
Britain became unsettled and threatening. There 
had never been any complete sundering of ties 
between the Indians of the Northwest and their 
old employers ; they were still to some extent 
pensioners upon Great Britain for services during 
the Revolutionary War; and as they had nothing 
to fear from British aggression, there were no 
suspicions to weaken the former friendship. If 
war broke out between the United States and 
Great Britain, the Indians were likely to take the 
part of their old allies ; and if the Indians on 
their part felt inclined to war, they naturally 
hoped for the assistance of the nation which they 
plainly perceived had no friendly feeling for the 
11 



162 MICHIGAN. 

Americans. What Governor Hull saw very dis- 
tinctly was that in the event of war the little 
settlement on the frontier of civilization, whose 
destinies were committed to his care, would be 
encompassed by foes so numerous and so blood- 
thirsty that they might overwhelm and destroy 
it before the distant assistance upon which ex- 
clusively he must depend could be made effective. 
Such was the state of affairs when the " dam " 
which Tecumseh had arranged broke away under 
premature pressure with such destructive force 
in the battle of the Tippecanoe. John Randolph 
truthfully said : " It was our own thirst for terri- 
tory, our own want of moderation that had driven 
these sons of nature to desperation of which we 
felt the effects." 



CHAPTER IX. 

WAE, AND THE CONQUEST AND EECONQUEST 
OF MICHIGAN. 

In February, 1812, Governor Hull was in Wash- 
j/igton, and reports which gave him great concern 
were continually coming to him of hostile conduct 
on the part of the Indians. For a long time the 
relations between the United States and Great 
Britain had been growing more and more critical ; 
and if, as there was every reason to fear, war 
should be declared, no part of the country was so 
exposed to attack or so difficult of defense as the 
territory of which he was governor. The people 
in a petition to Congress the preceding December 
had justly said that the whole territory was a 
double frontier, with British on one side and 
Indians on the other, and they prayed for further 
protection of military posts and for an additional 
force at Detroit. There was so little agriculture 
in the territory that the garrison they already 
had at Detroit must be dependent for supplies in 
part at least upon Ohio ; and a wilderness of two 
hundred miles separated that frontier post from 
the Ohio settlements. Through this wilderness 



164 MICHIGAN. 

by diflBculfc and exposed roads the supplies must 
be transported and reinforcements sent forward, 
unless the Americans should secure command of 
Lake Erie and establish a base of operations 
upon it. 

At this time the British had complete control of 
the lake and its connecting waters. Three years 
before the governor had suggested to the ad- 
ministration the expediency of constructing armed 
vessels upon Lake Erie as a necessary protection 
to communication with the territory ; and in 1811 
he returned to the subject, and gave his views 
with considerable fullness. After a careful review 
of the situation, he summed up as follows : — 

" This, then, appears to be the plain state of the case. 
The British have a regular force equal to ours. The 
province of Upper Canada has on its rolls a militia of 
twenty to one against us. In addition to this there can 
be but little doubt but a large proportion of the savages 
will join them. What then will be the situation of this 
part of the country ? Separated from the states by an 
extensive wilderness which will be filled with savages to 
prevent any succor, our water communications entirely 
obstructed by the British armed vessels on Lake Erie, 
we shall have no other resource for defense but the 
small garrisons and feeble population of the territory. 
Under these circumstances it is easy to foresee what 
will be the fate of this country. ... If there is a pros- 
pect of war with P^ngland, what measures are most 
expedient ? In my opinion there can be no doubt. Pre- 
pare a naval force on Lake Erie superior to the British, 
and sufficient to preserve your communications." 



ILLUSIONS REGARDING CANADA. 165 

And once more he returned to the subject in 
the spring of 1812, but every time without avail. 

There were not wanting at that day able men 
in Congress and out of it who ridiculed the sug- 
gestion that Canada could possibly be a source of 
serious danger to the United States. So far from 
indulging in fears of that sort, they looked upon 
Canada as a source of weakness to the British 
government. The people of Canada, as they con- 
ceived, were a people held in unwilling subjection 
by a foreign power ; and it was only necessary to 
raise the flag of liberty and offer them free insti- 
tutions, and they would be found flocking with 
alacrity to accept the offer. Mr. Clay, who should 
have known better, was one of this sanguine class. 
" We can take Canada without soldiers," he de- 
clared. " We have only to send officers into the 
province, and the people, disaffected towards their 
own government, will rally round our standard. 
... It is absurd to suppose we shall not succeed 
in our enterprise against the enemy's provinces. 
We have the Canadas as much under our com- 
mand as Great Britain has the ocean, and the 
way to conquer her on the ocean is to drive her 
from the land. I am not for stopping at Quebec 
or anywhere else, but I would take the whole con- 
tinent from them and ask no favors." Mr. Clay had 
evidently forgotten the history of Quebec in the 
war of the Revolution, and the repulse of the brave 
Montgomery before its frowning citadel. Discon- 



166 MICHIGAN. 

tent in Canada there undoubtedly had been under 
the administration of Governor-General Craig, 
who was obnoxious to Canadians of French de- 
scent ; but Craig had been succeeded by Sir George 
Prevost, an able man who took every pains to 
make a good impression upon the people, and to 
remove all ground of just complaint. The French 
inhabitants, more than willing to be favorably re- 
garded by their rulers, responded readily to the 
governor's pacific advances, and from all sides 
there is concurrent testimony that in the prepa- 
rations for anticipated war the Canadians were 
more active and also more unanimous than were 
the Americans. John Randolph was, therefore, 
abundantly justified by the facts when he ridi- 
culed the anticipated " holiday campaign," in 
which there was to be "no expense of blood or 
treasure on our part," but Canada was " to con- 
quer herself," " to be subdued by the principle of 
fraternity." But Mr. Clay's delusion was the 
common one, and nothing in his utterances ap- 
peared unreasonable to the dominant war party of 
the day. The journals of public opinion and the 
speeches of public men in Congress and elsewhere 
furnish abundant proof of a general expectation 
that Canada in case of war would be easily con- 
quered with the aid of large numbers of its own 
people. But Governor Hull, who better knew the 
condition of things in Canada than did most of 
his contemporaries, indulged in no such expecta- 
tion. 



THE FATAL BLUNDER. 167 

While in Washington the governor was tendered 
the command of a force, consisting in the main of 
Oliio militia, which it was proposed to send to 
Michigan for such service as might be required 
of it. He declined the appointment, but subse- 
quently, after Colonel Kingsbury, who had been 
assigned to the command had been disabled by 
sickness from taking it, he accepted, though with 
reluctance ; and at Dayton, on May 25th, three 
regiments of militia, commanded respectively by 
Colonels McArthur, Cass, and Findlay, and num- 
bering twelve hundred men, were placed under 
his command. Three hundred regulars afterwards 
joined them, and with the whole body General 
Hull marched to the Rapids of the Maumee, 
which he reached at the end of June. From Ur- 
bana, then a frontier town, a road had to be cut 
through the wilderness, and the labor was very 
great and the progress necessarily slow. 

The government made a blunder in tendering 
the command of this force to Hull, and lie on his 
part made if possible a greater blunder in ac- 
cepting it. His opinion that the control of the 
lakes was necessarj?^ to the protection of his posts 
had been fully disclosed ; and not having that 
control he was, according to his own view, if war 
should break out, at the mercy of the enemy. A 
courageous and vigorous campaign, and especially 
an aggressive campaign, it was idle to expect 
under such leadership : he was conquered by hig 



168 MICHIGAN. 

own misgivings before he moved ; and nothing 
but great and to him unexpected good fortune at 
the outset could have relieved him of his dismal 
forebodings and inspired him with the necessary- 
courage for a campaign so far from support. In- 
stead of experiencing any such good fortune he 
was made the victim of another blunder, the con- 
sequences of which were visited upon him with 
merciless severity when they culminated in the 
disaster which finally overtook his force. 

On July 1st General Hull procured a small ves- 
sel, upon which he loaded his baggage, hospital 
stores, and the invalids of his army, and sent it 
forward from the Rapids to Detroit. With the 
baggage he also sent important papers containing 
full information respecting the force under his 
command. There would have been nothing unsafe 
or wanting in prudence in this proceeding under 
ordinary circumstances, and General Hull might 
claim with some plausibility that he was aware of 
no circumstances which could render it improper 
or imprudent. But as the probability that war 
might arise was the only reason for placing him at 
the head of a military force, and as the vessel 
could not reach Detroit without passing what in 
the event of war would be a hostile fort, a more 
cautious man would not have been likely to expose 
his papers to unnecessary risks under such circum- 
stances. What actually happened, however, he 
had no reason to anticipate, for the department at 



NEGLIGENCE AT WASHINGTON. 169 

Washington was guilty of negligence so gross as 
to be little less than criminal. 

On the eighteenth of the preceding month Con- 
gress had declared war against Great Britain. As 
Hull was in command of a military force marching 
towards an exposed " double frontier," the im- 
portance of his receiving the earliest possible in- 
formation was so obvious and so imperative that 
it would seem impossible it should be overlooked 
or neglected by those in authority. But this, 
through gross and most unaccountable mismanage- 
ment in the war department, was precisely what 
happened. A communication from the secretary 
of war notifying General Hull that war had been 
declared, instead of being sent with expedition by 
special messenger, was intrusted, as far as Cleve- 
land, to the slow-going mail of the day, and only 
reached the general on the second of July. An- 
other communication from the same office, of com- 
paratively little importance, sent out at an earlier 
hour of the same day by special messenger, had 
come to hand eight days earlier. British interests 
had been looked after with more vigilance, and the 
authorities in Canada were notified of the state of 
war with the utmost promptness. The immediate 
and very natural consequence was that the vessel 
which Hull had sent forward from the Rapids was 
seized when passing the British post of Maiden, 
the astonished crew receiving their first notifica- 
tion that hostilities existed from the demand made 
for their surrender. 



170 MICHIGAN. 

But this capture of the general's baggage and 
papers was not the only injurious consequence of 
the criminal neglect of the war department. The 
secretary, in communicating to him so leisurely 
the fact that war had been declared, had appar- 
ently overlooked altogether the exposed post of 
Mackinaw, which from its situation and sur- 
roundings would be liable to immediate and over- 
whelming assault, unless at once reinforced and 
strengthened. He assumed that the general 
might be able at once to take the offensive, and 
suggested the capture of Maiden, and an exten- 
sion of conquests as circumstances might seem to 
justify. General Hull on receiving the communi- 
cation immediately pushed forward to Detroit. 
But the British authorities had lost no time in 
communicating the declaration of war to the offi- 
cer in command on the island of St. Joseph ; and 
that officer, though his own force was insignificant, 
had experienced no difficulty in collecting, within 
the short space of eight days, by the aid of British 
fur companies and the friendly Indians, a force 
of a thousand men. With this force on July 16th 
he started to reduce Mackinaw, and landing in 
the night-time, and taking up a position command- 
ing the fort, he was able in the morning to an- 
nounce his presence at the cannon's mouth. The 
garrison consisted of but fifty-seven effective men, 
and had no alternative but that of surrender. 

The possession of Mackinaw as a means of con« 



THE BRITISH CONTROL OF LAKE ERIE. 171 

trol over the Indians inhabiting that part of the 
country was at this time of the very highest im- 
portance. Nothing but a show of force held 
those Indians in a neutral position, and not even 
this remained when Mackinaw was lost. The cir- 
cumstances of the loss, also, were such as to bring 
the American authorities into contempt among the 
savage tribes. The prestige of success was now 
with the British, and such motives as had tended 
to restrain the savages from gratifying their in- 
clinations to take arms in the British service were 
gone. They were emboldened also to expect an 
easy and speedy success over Hull; and as a con- 
sequence the woods about Detroit and other settle- 
ments in Michigan were swarming with hostile 
savages, before there had been opportunity to take 
precautionary measures for protection. 

But by far the most important fact in the ex- 
isting situation was that which Hull had endeav- 
ored to convince the administration must control ; 
namely, that the British had undisputed mastery 
of Lake Erie. While they held command of that 
lake, Hull's communications were at their mercy. 
Such road as then existed between Detroit and 
the Ohio settlements was poor at the best, and at 
times almost impassable. It followed along the 
river and the western end of the lake to the 
Rapids of the Maumee ; and from the post of 
Maiden it was so easy at any time to throw a Brit- 
ish force upon it, that a strong military convoy 



172 MICHIGAN. 

was a necessity whenever supplies were to be sent. 
For the defense of the communications a consider- 
able force was therefore required beyond what 
would otherwise be needed for the protection of 
Detroit ; but no force could make them entirely 
secure against sudden and disastrous assaults. It 
is not likely that Hull, in this condition of affairs, 
saw anything to change his previous ophiion that 
control of the lake must be secured, or Detroit 
sooner or later must fall. 

But Hull very well knew it was the expecta- 
tion of the department and of the country that 
he would immediately commence operations to 
reduce a province which was supposed to be ready 
to fall into his hands. He therefore crossed the 
river into Canada on the 12th of July, dislodg- 
ing and scattering a small force which had col- 
lected at Sandwich. He also immediately, in pur- 
suance of the policy of " fraternity " which Mr. 
Randolph had so pointedly ridiculed, issued a 
proclamation to the Canadians in which he ten- 
dered them " the invaluable blessings of civil, 
political, and religious liberty, and their necessary 
result, individual and general prosperity." De- 
tachments from his army pushed out into the coun- 
try and secured some provisions, and one under 
the command of Colonel Cass took possession of 
the bridge over Aux Canards in the direction of 
Maiden. The army at the time was eagex' to at- 
tack Maiden, but the opinion of General Hull was 



CRITICAL POSITION OF HULL. 173 

against it. A council of war, when the river was 
first crossed, had decided against an immediate 
attack, and though the army had since received 
an important supply of field artillery, the com- 
mander did not believe an attack would be pru- 
dent. Meantime his supply of provisions, which 
was not very abundant at the outset, was rapidly 
diminishing, and his alarm was excited on that 
score. Learning that a company of Ohio troops 
was at Frenchtown with provisions for his relief, 
he detached Major Van Home with two hundred 
men to escort them to Detroit, but the officer in 
command at Maiden had early information of the 
movement, and a small force was sent across the 
river in the night, which fell upon Van Home and 
totally routed him. Here was new cause of anxi- 
ety to General Hull, and very striking evidence 
that his previous fears were not groundless. 

The calamity to Van Home was followed by 
information from Niagara which increased his un- 
easiness to such an extent as to impress him that 
his position in Canada was critical. He now 
learned that the British had sent reinforcements 
to Maiden, and that others were on their way; 
that their movements indicated an intended attack 
upon him, and that he could expect no diversion 
at Niagara in his favor. Impressed by this infor- 
mation with a sense of immediate danger, the 
general, without counseling with his officers, on 
the night of August 7th recrossed the river with 



174 MICHIGAN. 

his whole army to Detroit. The movement had 
all the appearance of a flight under a panic, and 
•was generally condemned by subordinate officers. 

The reason why Hull was to expect no diversion 
from Niagara in his behalf was that General Dear- 
born, who was in command of the American forces 
at that point, had entered into an armistice with 
Sir George Prevost, the British commander at 
Queenstown, whereby his hands were tied from 
rendering General Hull any assistance. Having 
hurried off to Maiden a considerable force under 
General Brock, Sir George had the address to se- 
cure the assent of General Dearborn to an armis- 
tice, whereby it was agreed that the forces opposing 
each other on the Niagara should act on the defen- 
sive only ; thus protecting his own depleted force 
by this stratagem, while Hull was left to his own 
resources and to such aid as an administration of 
phenomenal inefficiency would be likely to render 
him. The armistice was subject to disapproval 
at Washington, but the mischief which the British 
commander intended was accomplished before the 
disapproval by the government could be notified. 

Immediately on recrossing the river Hull de- 
tached Colonel Miller with six hundred men to 
do what Van Home had failed to accomplish, 
namely, to open communications and bring for- 
ward supplies from Frenchtown. At Monguagon 
a force of British and Indians was found in- 
trenched, and this was attacked and routed. A 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR SURRENDER. 176 

severe rain-storm coming on, and the rations prov- 
ing to be lost or destroyed, the detachment was 
ordered back to Detroit, and another sent out 
under McArthur and Cass, by a route farther 
back from the river. This was on August 14th. 
On the next day General Brock appeared at Sand- 
wich with a force which he reports at 1,330, and 
sent a demand to General Hull for a surrender. 
This being refused he opened fire, but with little 
effect. On the morning of the 16th he crossed 
the river at Springwells, in plain sight of the fort 
and without opposition, and renewed his demand 
for surrender. Hull, whose effective force then at 
the fort was rated by Cass at 1,060, but by himself 
at much less, immediately entered into negotia- 
tions for surrender, stipulating only for the pro- 
tection of the people and of private property, and 
for the parole of the state troops which had been 
sent to his assistance, but were not yet arrived. 
The forces of McArthur and Cass were included 
in the stipulation, but the^-fiery spirit of Cass could 
not brook the indignity, and he broke his sword 
rather than surrender it. From all sides the con- 
curring testimony is abundant that the army 
under Hull, confident in its ability to repel the 
British assault, was awaiting the attack in good 
spirits when the order to haul down the American 
flag was given. They had the mortification to see 
the flag lowered without a blow in its defense ; 
and with Detroit all Michigan passed under Brit- 
ish control. 



176 MICHIGAN. 

The indignation of the army at what seemed to 
them a pusillanimous surrender was intense, and its 
expression found an answering echo in every part 
of the country. Great things had been expected 
of this army, and the ambitious colonels of regi- 
ments had anticipated nothing so little as a result 
inglorious to American arms. The first sugges- 
tion to thousands of minds was that Hull, from 
some corrupt motive, must purposely and treason- 
ably have betrayed his ai-my. He was actually 
put on trial on a charge of treason, coupled with 
others of cowardice and criminal neglect of duty, 
before a court-martial of which General Dearborn 
was president ; and though acquitted of the most 
serious charge, he was convicted of the others, 
and sentenced to be shot to death. The president 
approved the conviction, but in consideration of 
former meritorious services remitted the penalty. 

When time had softened the asperities which 
the surrender evoked, General Hull appealed from 
this conviction to the judgment of his contempora- 
ries, basing his defense upon the following propo- 
sitions. First : That his army was cut off from 
supplies with no adequate means of opening com- 
munications, and that so situated it must inevita- 
bly fall. Second : That in his actual situation to 
fight ivould have been a useless expenditure of 
life, and would unnecessarily have exposed the 
inhabitants of the territory to Indian hostilities. 
Third : That the situation was not his own fault, 



HULL'S FALSE STEP. 177 

but was in part the fault of the general govern- 
ment, and of General Dearborn, and in part of 
circumstances for which perhaps no one was re- 
sponsible. Fourth : That his force at the time 
was much inferior to that of General Brock ; 
and Fifth : That his provisions were so nearly ex- 
hausted that surrender for that reason would soon 
have been inevitable even if his force had been 
adequate. The judgment of the country has not 
acquitted Hull of fault. That his effective force 
was smaller than that of General Brock seems 
probable. The latter in his official report stated 
the forces captured at 2,500 ; a gross exaggeration, 
which must have been intended to magnify his 
success beyond its true proportions. The same 
motive might have led him, and possibly did, to 
understate his own force. And the situation was 
sncli that while Brock might expect accessions 
from Indians and militia, Hull could look for none 
immediately from any source. 

But armies have often, under far more disad- 
vantageous circumstances, won signal victories ; 
and while the men were confident and eager to 
put courage to the test, the general had no busi- 
ness to be discouraged. The men believed they 
could repulse the enemy in his attempt to cross ; 
and they should have been given the opportunity 
for a trial. But when he had crossed they felt 
safe within the fort ; and the scarcity of provisions 
could have been no ground for surrender until the 

12 



178 MICHIGAN. 

enemy had demonstrated bis ability to keep the 
garrison behind its defenses. 

The ground of defense which has most strongly 
appealed to the sympathy of the world was that 
a vigorous resistance would have subjected the 
inhabitants to the danger of massacre at the hands 
of the hostile Indians. This the general, who as 
governor must have been familiar with the face 
of nearly every man, woman, and child in the 
little town of Detroit, professed to contemplate 
with horror. And if the defense of his post 
had been plainly impossible, he might upon this 
ground have been excused from making the vain 
attempt. But as a military commander his first 
duty was to defend the posts committed to his 
charge ; and he had no right while that was pos- 
sible to permit his sympathies to overcome his 
sense of public duty. War is cruel at the best, 
and the commander of an army expects to inflict 
cruelties instead of laying down his arms to prevent 
them. A possible massacre of non-combatants is 
always incident to a warfare in which savages are 
employed, and constitutes a reason with civilized 
nations for refusing to employ them. But General 
Hull knew very well that for a military com- 
mander to suffer the possible barbarities of the 
opposing force to be accepted as a reason for 
relaxing the vigor of his efforts, or for surrender- 
ing his charge while it was still in his power to 
make defense, was to give the savage an im* 



THE FATAL LOGIC OF HULDS POSITION. 179 

portance in war beyond liis proper military effect- 
iveness, and to make his very cruelty and his 
disregard of the rules of civilized warfare a reason 
for employing him. Instead of yielding to such 
considerations, his duty on the other hand would 
be to make his defense all the more persistent and 
vigorous, that his antagonist might be made to 
see that loss rather than gain was to follow from 
bringing into the field a force so wicked and so 
uncontrollable in its barbarity. 

But what was put beyond question by Hull's 
defense was that his fault began when he ac- 
cepted a task which he believed it was not in his 
power to accomplish. Without the command of 
the lake he had declared that Detroit must fall ; 
and yet without command of the lake he had 
undertaken its defense. When, therefore, the en- 
emy came and demanded a surrender, his judg- 
ment, deliberately formed, assented immediately 
to the demand, because he believed resistance 
would be hopeless. It was not necessary to sug- 
gest physical cowardice : the want of confidence 
in the ability to make defense of the post had 
been made known to the government before his 
appointment. When the government persisted in 
offering him the command, his duty was either to 
decline it absolutely, or to let the courage of others 
supply the deficiency of his own, even though the 
task might seem to be an attempt to accomplish 
the impossible. 



180 MICniGAN. 

The judgment of the court-martial upon General 
Hull has never as a judgment had much weight 
with the people. It was ordered by an adminis- 
tration whose blunders in management had been 
at least equally blamable with his own conduct, 
and it was presided over by an officer whose 
position in respect to some of the questions in- 
volved was such as to suggest a suspicion that he 
could not be wholly unbiased. The importance 
to the defense of Detroit of a command of the 
lake was afterwards so fully demonstrated that 
the prosecution of the officer who pointed it out 
in advance, by the government which could not 
understand or appreciate it, seemed to partake of 
cruelty. 

On taking possession of Detroit, General Brock 
issued a proclamation announcing that the Amer- 
ican laws should continue in force so long as the 
peace and safety of the territory would admit. 
Colonel Proctor was made civil governor with full 
powers, and he immediately issued regulations for 
the government of the territory, whereby the civil 
officers remaining in the territory were for the 
most part continued in the discharge of their 
respective functions, and the courts were to be 
open as usual. And what proved to be of more 
importance to the people than ?i\\y of the other 
regulations. Chief Justice Woodward was desig- 
nated to act as secretary. 

This able and fearless official, who in time oi 



MILITARY OPERATIONS. 181 

peace had so stretched his prerogative to the an- 
noyance of the governor, had now an opportunity 
to appear in a character which justly won for him 
the gratitude of the people whose interests in 
a measure were committed to his keeping. For i 
time his influence with Colonel Proctor was con- 
siderable, and he was ready on all occasions to 
employ it in mitigating the evils of war to his 
countrymen. But Proctor soon gave such unmis- 
takable evidence of a tyrannical nature that no 
one who sympathized with the people placed by 
the fortune of war at his mercy could possibly for 
any considerable time cooperate with him in har- 
mony. It does not appear that any breach took 
place in their official relations until after the defeat 
of Winchester at French town, but the atrocities 
which attended and followed that disaster to the 
American arms, and the use which the temporary 
governor at Detroit would have made of it to 
bring an unwilling people to abjure allegiance to 
their own government, not only excited the indig- 
nation of the chief justice, but convinced him that 
he could no longer be useful in the attempt to 
cooperate with a man so wanting in proper feel- 
ing and so unobservant of the common rights of 
humanity. 

The military operations important in their bear- 
ing upon the final possession of Michigan, after 
the capture of Detroit, can be briefly stated. Fort 
Dearborn at Chicago, which was within the ju« 



182 MICHIGAN. 

risdiction of General Hull, was abandoned on 
the loth of August, in pursuance of an order 
which he had sent, but the garrison in returning 
was captured by hostile Indians and in part mas- 
sacred. An army entitled the Army of the West 
was soon put in process of formation, under the 
command of General Harrison, who was expected 
to operate against Upper Canada, and to repossess 
the country lost by Hull. In January, 1813, 
General Harrison was at Sandusky, from which 
place he sent orders to General Winchester at 
Fort Defiance to move forward and take post 
at the Rapids of the Maumee, which was promptly 
accomplished. At the Rapids Winchester received 
an urgent appeal from Frenchtown for protection 
against British and Indians who were then threat- 
ening to plunder the settlement, and he sent out a 
detachment of near seven hundred men to their 
assistance. The enemy were attacked and scat- 
tered with considerable loss, and Winchester on 
receiving information of the affair, went forward 
himself with a small reinforcement, and assumed 
the command. The force which had preceded him 
was quartered behind pickets in the settlement, 
and the reinforcement encamped in the open field. 
Here at daybreak of the next morning, January 
22d, Winchester was attacked by a British force 
from Maiden under the command of Proctor, and 
nearly the whole detachment was killed or cap- 
tured. Winchester himself was among the pris- 



PROCTOR'S INHUMANITY. 183 

oners, and many of his men in endeavoring to 
escape were tomahawked by Indians. Meantime 
an assault upon the pickets had been repulsed with 
heavy loss ; but Proctor having made Winchester 
believe he could easily destroy the village and 
drive out the military with his artillery, and that 
a massacre by the Indians would follow, the latter 
weakly sent orders for surrender. Major Madison, 
who was in command, declined to obey until as- 
sured of protection against the Indians, and the 
proper assurances were given. Private property 
was to be respected, a guard was to be provided 
for the wounded, and sleighs furnished for their 
removal to Maiden. 

If any attempt was made to keep faith with 
these stipulations, it was so feeble and ill-con- 
ducted that it accomplished little or nothing. 
Proctor did indeed take to Maiden under the pro- 
tection of his own soldiers such of the prisoners 
as were able to walk, but the wounded were left 
behind, where they were plundered by straggling 
savages ; and after the main body of the Indians 
had moved off to Stony Creek, a band, some two 
hundred in number, unable longer to restrain their 
savage propensities, hurried back to Frenchtown, 
and began an indiscriminate slaughter. Well has 
a historian of Canada said, in alluding to this 
iiffair : " It is a subject of eternal regret to every 
true Briton that those biped bloodhounds should 



184 MICHIGAN. 

have run under the shadow of our standard so 
long and so late." ^ 

The criminality of Proctor in respect to the 
massacre of Frenchtown was enhanced, if that be 
possible, by the fact that citizens, in anticipation 
of a battle, had specially called his attention tc 
the probability of such an occurrence. Judg^ 
Woodward, in a subsequent communication re- 
viewing the facts, reminded him of the previous 
apprehensions of the people, which had induced 
them to press the subject upon his attention 
previous to the battle, and that their fears had 
been quieted by his assurance that he considered 
his own honor pledged for their effectual protec- 
tion. Proctor affected to disbelieve the reports of 
barbarities, and called upon the judge for proofs. 
They were furnished in great abundance, and the 
story, which was cruel enough when told in sum- 
mary, was only the more sickening and horrible 
when given in detail. Proctor, also, as if that to 
any extent could excuse the massacre, intimated, 
without directly affirming, that the surrender had 
been made without pledge of protection on his 
part ; but he was very properly reminded that the 
principles of the law of nations impose an obliga- 
tion almost equally strong ; and the judge might 
very justly have added that a commander who 
advances the fact that his prisoners surrendered 
without first demanding assurances that they shall 
* Garneau's History of Canada, by Bell, vol. ii. p. 293. 



UNJUSTIFIABLE MEASURES. 185 

be treated according to the rules of civilized war 
as excuse or palliation for his conduct in suffering 
them to be massacred, is adding, by the brutality 
of the excuse, to the original enormity. 

For some time after the massacre there might 
frequently be seen on the streets of Detroit women 
and children led or driven as the prisoners of sav- 
ages, and considerable sums were paid by humane 
people for their ransom. Meantime Proctor, not 
yet satisfied with the misery inflicted upon the 
territory, undertook to coerce the citizens of De- 
troit into taking an oath of allegiance to the king. 
He seems to have intimated a desire to have the 
assistance of Judge Woodward in this business; 
but that oflBcer, with no little indignation, told 
him that " in a state of open and declared war a 
subject or citizen of one party cannot transfer his 
allegiance to the other party without incurring 
the penalties of treason; and while nothing can 
excuse Ms guilt, so neither are those innocent who 
lay temptations before him." Proctor also, with- 
out just cause so far as is known, ordered from 
the town a considerable number of its leading 
citizens, in palpable violation of the terms of 
Hull's capitulation, which stipulated for the pro- 
tection of persons and private property. They 
made spirited protest, but it had no effect upon 
the British commander ; and Judge Woodward, 
apparently convinced that he could no longer be 
of service to his countrymen by remaining in De- 



186 MICHIGAN. 

troit as the subordinate of so arbitrary a ruler, 
withdrew from the territory that he might give 
the facts to the workl. He returned when peace 
was restored, and took up again his judicial func- 
tions. 

The capture of Winchester was followed by 
successive attacks under the leadership of Proctor 
on Forts Meigs and Stephenson, where his repulse 
was so decided that he deemed it prudent to fall 
back with precipitation upon Maiden. But the 
career of this obnoxious officer was now rapidly 
drawing to a close. On the 10th of September, 
1813, Commodore Perry won his great victory 
over Commodore Barclay at Put-in Bay, capturing 
the entire British squadron. Making use of the 
captured vessels for convoy, the army of Harrison, 
now largely reinforced, was transferred to Canada 
and took up offensive operations. Proctor, in great 
haste, proceeded to dismantle the fortress at Mai- 
den preparatory to flight. To the great Indian 
chieftain this looked like an act of cowardice, and 
he made earnest protest against it. In a formal 
speech Tecumseh said to his superior officer, " You 
have got the arms and ammunition which our 
great father sent for his red children. If you 
have an idea of going away, give them to us, and 
then for all we care you may go and welcome. 
Our lives are in the hands of the Great Spirit. 
We are determined to defend our lands, and if it 
be his will we wish to leave our bones upon 



END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. 187 

them." But the protest and the phiinly implied 
censure were alike in vain. Maiden and Detroit 
were both evacuated and a hasty retreat made. 
Detroit on September 29th was reoccupied by an 
American detachment, and Proctor was pursued 
and overtaken at the Moravian town, where he 
sustained a crushing defeat, and only escaped 
capture by precipitate flight, looking, as some of 
his own people said, more after his baggage than 
after his army. Tecumseh, who among Amer- 
icans had in all respects a better reputation than 
his superior, and was looked upon as honorable 
and humane, was killed in the engagement. 

This victory effectually broke for the time the 
British power in Western Canada, and was the 
end of important military operations in the vicin- 
ity of Detroit. Colonel Cass, much to the satis- 
faction of the people, was stationed with his 
regiment at that place and given the command. 
Mackinaw still remained in the hands of the 
British, and an attempt made by Colonel Croghan 
to recover it in July, 1814, proved abortive. It 
was only restored after the conclusion of peace in 
the spring of the following year. 

After the death of Tecumseh a considerable 
number of Indians abandoned their British allies, 
and some of them offered their services to Colonel 
Cass and were accepted and enrolled by him. But 
it was not easy to subject them to proper dis- 
cipline, and their thirst for plunder was so uncon- 



188 MICHIGAN. 

trollable that Colonel Cass did not long retain 
them. Hostile Indians hovered about Detroit and 
committed occasional depredations until after the 
peace with Great Britain. A mounted force was 
sent up from Ohio as a protection against them, 
and they were soon brought under such fear 
of punishment as kept them for the most part to 
a proper observance of the rights of others. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE BEGINNrNGS OF ACTIVE AMERICAN SETTLE- 
MENT. 

Michigan had great good fortune in her second 
teri'itorial governor. Lewis Cass, born in New 
Hampshire, had settled at Marietta at the age of 
seventeen, and had had abundant opportunity to 
become thoroughly acquainted with the Northwest 
and its people. He was a lawyer of exceptional 
ability ; he had been in the legislature of Ohio 
when the mysterious conspiracy of Burr excited 
and alarmed the country, and had drawn and pro- 
cured the passage of a law to reach and punish 
such conspiracies. Afterwards he had served as 
marshal of Ohio, on the appointment of Mr. Jeffer- 
son. On the breaking out of war with Great 
Britain, he had entered into military service, with 
the ambition and courage to make the aggressive 
campaign which the country had expected of Hull. 
His severe condemnation of that officer, in a letter 
to the war department, had attracted the attention 
of the country, and been generally accepted as 
conclusive of Hull's criminality. Afterwards he 
had taken part in the brilliant campaign of Harri' 



190 MICHIGAN. 

son, which ended in the destruction of the British 
army in western Canada, the killing of Tecum- 
seh, and the ignominious flight of Proctor. He 
had then been assigned to the command at Detroit 
and became military governor of Michigan. The 
president could have made no appointment of 
civil governor more likely to be useful or accepta- 
ble to the people. 

The territory was also fortunate in its secretary. 
This office was of great importance, as the secre- 
tary, in the absence of the governor, would become 
acting governor ex officio. William Woodbridge 
was selected for this place, like Cass a lawyer of 
prominence at Marietta. The two men were as 
different as possible : the governor, a man of the 
world, of robust health and active temperament, 
fond of politics and a natural leader ; the secretary, 
more frail and of a retiring disposition, and never 
so happy as when busy at his quiet home among 
his books. On political questions the two wei'e 
commonly found in opposition, but there were no 
unseemly disagreements during the long time they 
held offices so mutually related, and their official 
intercourse was always decorous and agreeable, 
though they were never specially intimate. 

The number of French farms, particularly on 
the river Detroit, had been slowly increasing. 
Secretary Woodbridge has left us a picturesque 
description of their appearance from the river as 
he came up to take possession of his office : the 



THE FUR TRADE IN MICHIGAN. 191 

row of long and narrow farms, with cultivation 
only in front ; the houses of one story, most of 
them from ten to eighty years old and fashioned a 
little like the houses of the low Dutch about New 
York ; and the moss-grown crucifixes everywhere 
on gates, barns, and houses, — this was what ap- 
peared on either side the river. 

But it was still to be said of Michigan that its 
few settlements were far on the frontier, and that 
its leading interest was that which gathered its 
harvests in the wilderness. John Jacob Astor had 
appeared in the fur trade a little before the war, 
and had negotiated with the British fur companies 
for the purchase of their interests on the American 
side of the boundary, but the war had broken up 
the arrangements, and after it was over Congress, 
in his interest, passed a law prohibiting foreign 
traders from prosecuting their enterprises within 
the limits of the United States. This law, as a re- 
taliatory measure, was perfectly just, for the Brit- 
ish companies, by their organization and the man- 
ner in which they had employed it in the capture 
of Mackinaw, had given ample demonstration that 
they were capable of performing the service of a 
military force, and that they constituted an ever- 
present danger to the settlements. It was evi- 
dent, also, that their interests were opposed to the 
settlement of the country ; and if this fact did 
not prompt them to foster an unfriendly feeling on 
the part of the Indians towards the Americans, 



192 MICHIGAN. 

it would without doubt keep alive an influence 
against further cessions of land by the Indian 
tribes. The exclusion of British fur dealers from 
American territory was, therefore, justifiable on 
sound reasons of public policy; and Mr. Astor as 
the American Fur Company, with his headquar- 
ters on the island of Mackinaw, soon had the 
woods full of savage and half savage people, 
working in his interest and gathering for him the 
forest treasures that soon made him one of the 
great merchant princes of the world. 

The fur trade, however, could neither colonize 
Michigan nor enrich it. It brought some money 
and some goods into the territory and assisted in 
giving a certain activity to business at the centres 
of trade. But the period immediately following 
the war was one of great depression and general 
stagnation in business, and the derangement of the 
currency was such that losses from that source 
were constant and unavoidable. Steady progress 
and prosperity were impossible while this state of 
things continued. 

Michig'an also needed to be better known. The 
country knew almost nothing of it, and the com- 
mon belief was that there was a fine belt of terri- 
tory on the eastern border, but that the interior 
was a vast swamp which might well be abandoned 
to fur-bearing animals and the trappers and hunt- 
ers. This belief was countenanced by the geog- 
raphers of the day ; for even Morse, who was con. 



TREATMENT OF INDIANS. 193 

sidered authority, gave it currency in the books 
which were made use of in colleges and schools. 
It was supported also by the reports of surveyors 
who were sent out by the general government, and 
who reported without much investigation what 
they supposed to be the fact. A notable instance 
is that of the party who were charged with the 
duty of making surveys for bounty lands for the 
soldiers who had served in the late war. These 
surveyors professed to have made an examination 
of the country, beginning at the northern terminus 
of the boundary line between Ohio and Indiana 
and proceeding thence north fifty miles ; and they 
reported finding only tamarack swamps, bogs, and 
sand barrens, with not one acre in a hundred fit 
for cultivation ; a most astounding report, and 
quite impossible to have been honestly made, if 
they had examined the country as they professed 
to have done. But it was conclusive for the time, 
and the soldiers were sent farther west for their 
bounty lands, not probably to their advantage. 

Other causes besides ignorance of the country 
were delaying its settlement. Many Indians were 
still in the territory, whose presence was disqui- 
eting, and the governor deemed it of high im- 
portance that, so far as should be found possible 
consistently with justice, they should be remove( 
to the distant west. They had, now, in two wars 
been employed by the British against the Ameri- 
cans, and they were regular pensioners on British 

13 



194 MICHIGAN. 

bounty. They gathered annually in considerable 
numbers at Maiden and at Drumraond's Island to 
receive payments and presents, and while their 
attachment to the British was thus perjjetuated, 
their animosity to the Americans was to some 
extent kept alive also. They passed back and 
forth through the territory in large bands, and 
were likely to encamp in the vicinity of white 
settlements, whenever there was opportunity for 
doing so, and their drunken orgies and savage 
antics made them a source of constant dread and 
danger. 

Governor Cass, thei-efore, who was made super- 
intendent of Indian affairs for the Northwest, gave 
early attention to the extinguishment of the In- 
dian title. One treaty of cession was made as 
early as 1814 ; another and very important one 
was concluded at Fort Meigs, on September 29, 
1817, by which the Wyandot, Seneca, Delaware, 
Shawanese, Pottawatamie, Ottawa, and Chip- 
pewa tribes of Indians surrendered nearly all the 
lands they claimed in Ohio, and large districts in 
Indiana and Michigan, constituting in all nearly 
four millions of acres. Sixteen other treaties 
were negotiated during his administration, mainly 
through his management, resulting in the transfer 
of a large part of the Indians to the country west 
of the Mississippi. In all his dealings with them 
the governor proceeded in a spirit of perfect fair- 
ness, refusing at any time to resort to coercion, 



SALES OF PUBLIC LANDS. 195 

but waiting for a more propitious day wlien he 
found success by fair means impossible. He thus 
preserved for himself the respect of the Indians, 
and secured for his people their good will. 

It was next important that the lands acquired 
by the United States should be brought into 
market. Congress in 1796 had provided for the 
survey aiid sale of the public lands in sections of 
six hundred and forty acres, at a minimum price 
of two dollars an acre, giving credit for a part of 
the purchase-price if desired. Changes were after- 
wards made in the interest of purchasers with 
small means, and in 1817 sales in eighty-acre lots 
were authorized. In 1818 the surveys had so far 
progressed that sales were begun in Michigan. 
In 1820 the minimum price was reduced to one 
dollar twenty-five cents an acre. Ten years later 
preemption rights began to be given to actual 
settlers upon the public lands. By this legislation 
it was made easy for any prudent and industri- 
ous person to obtain land sufficient for moderate 
wants. 

Governor Cass meanwhile was active and vigi- 
lant in furthering the interests of his government. 
In 1818, on the admission of Illinois to the Union 
as a state, the territory of Michigan had been 
enlarged by the addition to it of all that part of 
the Northwest Territory lying west of Lake Mich- 
igan and north of Illinois ; an addition, the value 
of which was at the time very little known. The 



196 MICHIGAN. 

governor now determined to visit in person the 
upper lake region, with a view to inquire into 
the condition of the Indians, their numbers and 
sentiments ; to explain to them that their an- 
nual visits to the British authorities at Maiden 
were offensive to him and must be discontinued; 
to obtain further cessions if possible ; to investi- 
gate the copper region; and to make himself 
familiar with facts concerning the British and 
American fur trade. This comprehensive plan was 
carried out by the governor in 1820, when he tra- 
versed the lakes with a party in open boats, hold- 
ing councils with the Indians by the way, at one 
of which a cession of land at the Sault St. Marie 
was secured. But the Indians were generally 
found to be unfriendly and completely under Brit- 
ish control. At the Sault, when the governor 
signified his purpose to construct a new fort, there 
were plain intimations that it would not be per- 
mitted, and one of the chiefs spui-ned with a con- 
temptuous kick the presents which had been laid 
out for him. When the council broke up for the 
day, the Indians withdrew and raised the British 
flag before the tent of one of their chiefs ; but 
Governor Cass, on perceiving it, immediately pro- 
ceeded, without arms and unattended, to take it 
down and bear it away with him, regardless of the 
menacing aspect of the savages and of their mut- 
tered threats. It was a bold act but as wise as it 
was bold, and though for a time an armed collision 



ABSENCE OF GOOD ROADS. 197 

seemed imminent, the undaunted demeanor of the 
governor had its effect, and the Indians, when 
they were given distinctly to understand that the 
fort would be built and American supremacy 
maintained, returned to the council in a more sub- 
missive mood, and consented to enter upon an 
amicable consideration of the subjects the governor 
brought before it. 

Another matter of immediate and pressing im- 
portance was that of roads. Immigrants could 
not come into the territory in any considerable 
numbers so long as they must find their way 
through the woods by trails, or by roads cut out 
but never worked, and which in a little while by 
use became nearly impassable. At the conclusion 
of the war there were no good roads anywhere in 
the territory. Lake Erie was then open, but there 
were no regular passenger vessels of any kind upon 
it. Neither was there any considerable popula- 
tion bordering it from which Michigan might ex- 
pect accessions. Such immigration as then came 
to the territory would be likely to take the road 
around the west end of Lake Erie, a road the 
national importance of which, not less for military 
than for civil purposes, had been fully demon- 
strated in the late war. The governor, therefore, 
with the efiicient aid of the secretary, called the 
attention of the federal government to it, and the 
secretary in person pressed it upon the attention 
of Congress with such effect that an appropriation 



198 MICHIGAN. 

in aid of it was at length secured. The resources 
of the territory, so far as with reason they could 
be applied to this purpose, were appropriated to 
the construction of a highway from Detroit to 
Chicago, and other roads of similar importance, 
and it became possible to penetrate the territory 
in various directions with the ordinary means of 
country transportation, as it had never been be- 
fore. The results were so beneficial that the 
population of the territory, which for fifty years 
had been nearly stationary, began steadily, though 
slowly, to increase, and by 1820 not only had the 
losses by the war been made good, but the num- 
ber of the people was found to be twice as great 
as it was at the preceding census. 

Meantime the question of change in the terri- 
torial government was being agitated. In 1818, 
under a belief that the population of the territory 
now entitled the people to be represented in the 
legislative department, the question was submitted 
to a popular vote, whether they desired to be thus 
represented. The answer by the voters, the most 
of whom were still French, was a decided nega- 
tive. The people had found nothing to object to 
in the existing government and they cared for no 
change. Moreover, to them the duties and the 
burdens of government seem to have had no 
special attractions. They were also still poor 
from the exhaustion of the war, and the cost of 
the proposed change in government was used as a 



FATHER RICHARD. 199 

powerful argument against it. They were, how- 
ever, given the privilege of electing a delegate to 
Congress in 1819, and William Woodbridge was 
first chosen. After a short incumbency he re- 
tired, and was succeeded by Judge Solomon Sib- 
ley, and he in turn by Father Richard. 

Father Richard was now in his sixtieth year. 
He had built St. Anne's Church at Detroit under 
many difficulties of a pecuniary nature, and he 
now officiated there to a large congregation. He 
was a favorite with the people at large, and was 
easily persuaded that, as territorial delegate, he 
might be exceptionally useful at Washington. But 
he was not universally liked by his parishioners, 
with whose faults he was not over-indulgent ; and 
it is a fact not unworthy of mention that when 
elected delegate he was under arrest on an exe- 
cution in favor of one of them. One of his people 
had obtained a divorce from his wife contrary to 
the laws of the church, and had then married 
again ; and the father arraigned him in church 
and denounced him, in the presence of the congre- 
gation, as an adulterer. For this language he was 
prosecuted and a judgment of a thousand dol- 
lars obtained, which he refused to pay, preferring 
to suffer imprisonment, rather than recognize the 
rightfulness of this judicial interference with his 
clerical functions. His privilege as a member of 
Congress enabled him to obtain relief for the time 
being, and eventually the equally plain privilege 



200 MICHIGAN. 

belonging to his sacred office was very properly- 
recognized by the court, and the judgment ar- 
rested. He served one term as delegate to the 
satisfaction of the people, and was then succeeded 
by Austin E. Wing, some of the Catholics lead- 
ing the opposition which defeated him. But he 
turned patiently and without complaint to his 
more legitimate work, to which he devoted him- 
self with unwearied assiduity until 1832, when he 
fell a victim to the cholera, dying full of years, 
and grateful for the long life of labor and useful- 
ness which had been accorded him. 

Long before this time other denominations of 
Christians had come to be represented in the ter- 
ritory by their teachers and pastors; the Meth- 
odists, who in the new West have commonly been 
the pioneers, were gathering a little congregation 
at Detroit as early as 1809, and in 1816 the Rev. 
John Monteith, of whom we shall hear again, was 
delivering carefully prepared written discourses 
with decided Calvinistic leaning, to Protestants 
without distinction. And before long began 
changes in government. In 1823 the legislative 
power was finally transferred from the governor 
and judges to the governor and a council of nine, 
the members of the council being selected by 
the president and confirmed by the Senate from 
eighteen chosen by the people. By this change 
Michigan was advanced to the second grade in ter- 
ritorial government. Two years later came an- 



THE PRACTICE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 201 

other change in the increase of the councilmen 
to thirteen, and in 1827 the exclusive power of 
choice was left to the people. 

This last change, which established the third 
grade in territorial government, made the people 
to a large extent self-governing. It may be as- 
sumed to have been made on the recommendation 
of the governor, for it was in entire accord with his 
well known views. Though in his own office a 
creature of executive power, he was a thorough 
believer in self-government of the people, and de- 
sired to see the power of appointment which was 
vested in him transferred to the voters. In one of 
his messages he urged an application to Congress 
for a change of the law in this regard, and he 
sometimes advised the holding of popular elections 
as a guide to his own action in making appoint- 
ments. But the democratic tendencies of his mind 
were perhaps most distinctly manifested in his 
recommendations on the subject of popular educa- 
tion, of which more will be heard farther on. 

Under the organic law the governor had power 
to organize counties, and this power he exercised 
freely as occasion required. In 1825 the legisla- 
tive council was empowered to divide the counties 
into townships, and the township system was then 
introduced which in its main features has con- 
tinued to this day. But other changes were now 
taking place which were quite as significant in 
their influence upon the growth and prosperity of 



202 MICHIGAN. 

the territory as the changes in government. Pre- 
vious to 1809 there had been no printing press in 
the territory and Governor Hull was compelled to 
procure the printing of his orders and proclama- 
tions — when they were printed at all — several 
hundred miles away. Even the laws were not 
printed as they appeared, and some of them, re- 
maining in manuscript, were mislaid or abstracted 
and all evidence of them lost. The first printing 
press was brought to the territory in 1809 by 
Father Richard, and a little paper called the 
" Michigan Essay and Impartial Observer " 
started ; but it had brief existence. In 1816 the 
Cass Code, as it was popularly called, was pub- 
lished. It was, in the main, a mere abstract of 
the laws in force, the territorial funds not justify- 
ing a full publication. In 1817 the day of news- 
papers for Michigan had come, and the "Detroit 
Gazette " was begun, followed in 1825 by another 
paper at Detroit, in 1829 by a third at Ann Ar- 
bor, and in 1830 by others at Monroe and Pon- 
tiac. These were not merely journals of current 
news, but at times they discussed public affairs 
and important political questions with ability and 
vigor. Now also dawned the day of steamboats. 
The Walk-in-the- Water made its appearance at 
Detroit in 1818 and was hailed as the harbinger 
of a new era. The next year it advanced as far 
as Mackinaw, to the astonishment of the savages 
who were mischievously made to believe it was 



GOVERNOR CASS IN JACKSON'S CABINET. 203 

drawn by a team of trained sturgeons. The great 
event of the period, however, and that which had 
most to do with giving sudden impetus to the 
growth of Michigan and bringing to it the pop- 
ulation that shortly had planted settlements and 
reared churches and school-houses all through its 
central and southern parts, was the opening in 
1825 of the Erie Canal. It was not long after 
this before steamers were abundant on the lakes ; 
no less than seven on Lake Erie in 1826, and four 
years thereafter a daily line was running between 
Detroit and Buffalo. The fort at Detroit was 
abandoned, as having become an anachronism, in 
1827, and in the same year flour began on a small 
scale to be exported. In 1830 the population had 
risen to 32,538, and the territory was self-support- 
ing. By the time Governor Cass was summoned 
by President Jackson to a seat in his cabinet in 
1831, the little frontier settlements which he had 
come on to defend in 1812 had extended and 
spread to the dimensions of a commonwealth 
under his judicious and statesmanlike care and 
nurture. 

There was some feeling of territorial pride that 
Jackson had looked to this distant region for a 
member of his cabinet, but the people of the ter- 
ritory parted with the governor with great reluc- 
tance. He had not only managed the public 
affairs with ability and unquestioned integrity, 
but his example had been excellent and his influ- 



204 MICHIGAN. 

ence of the best. Governing frontier settlements 
where rough characters abounded and roystering 
habits prevailed, he was always in his own deport- 
ment courteous and complaisant, always abste- 
mious, always self-respecting ; and as unexception- 
able in his private character and in all his domestic 
and social relations as he was in his public capacity 
and deportment. Permanent American settlement 
may be said to have begun with him ; and it was 
a great and lasting boon to Michigan when it was 
given a governor at once so able, so patriotic, so 
attentive to his duties, and so worthy in his public 
and private life of respect and esteem. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE TERRITORY ADVANCES TO THE DIGKITY 
OF A STATE. 

When Lewis Cass resigned the office of gov- 
ernor of Michigan, there were living within the 
territory many men of ability and education, who 
were thoroughly familiar with its affairs and fully 
possessed of the public confidence. The appoint- 
ment of any one of these to the vacant office would 
have been recognized as that of a competent and 
suitable person. Some of them — as, for example, 
William Woodbridge, who had been secretary of 
the territory, and as such had occasionally acted 
as governor in the absence of Governor Cass, and 
who, after resigning the office of secretary, had 
been successively delegate in Congress and judge, 
and Austin E. Wing, who had also been dele- 
gate in Congress — were already well known at 
Washington, and others might have been known 
through Governor Cass had he been consulted. 
The late governor was a democrat by conviction 
and not merely in a party sense ; it was no new 
doctrine with him, when, in his famous Nicholson 
letter, previous to the meeting of the nominating 



206 MICHIGAN. 

convention of his party in 1848, he Liid down the 
proposition respecting the inherent right of the 
people of the territories to self-government which, 
by way of ridicule, was christened by his oppo- 
nents as the doctrine of squatter sovereignty ; he 
had himself as governor endeavored to devolve 
upon the people as belonging to them of riglit such 
appointing power as the law had confided to him ; 
and it is not probable, had he been consulted by 
the president respecting officers for the territory 
he was leaving, that he would have advised look- 
ing beyond the territory itself for such officers, or 
that he would have felt any difficulty in naming 
perfectly competent men, who had cast their for- 
tunes with the territory, for every important office 
in it. It is very rare that a new community in a 
frontier region contains among its members so 
many men of culture and ability as Michigan had 
among its citizens while it remained a territory ; 
and there could have been no just excuse for treat- 
ing it as a community unfit to govern itself, and 
requiring rulers sent in from abroad to govern it. 
This had been necessary in the case of the North- 
west Territory, for the settlement was in its in- 
fancy and everybody was a new-comer when the 
organization took place ; and it was excusable 
also in the cases of earlier appointments for Mich- 
igan, considering its peculiar population and cir- 
cumstances. The excuse no longer existed in 
view of the large, intelligent, and self-respecting 
population which the territory had acquired. 



JACKSON'S APPOINTMENTS TO OFFICE. 207 

• 

But a period had now arrived constituting a 
new era in American politics, when for a long 
time no general maxim of government was to be 
so powerful at Washington as the maxim that to 
the victor belong the spoils of office. This maxim 
of war, when war meant robbery and plunder, was 
now being adopted in the civil administration of 
the government, and was to vitalize all political 
life and be the chief spring of all political action 
and energy. As the people of the territories had 
no vote, they constituted no part of the victors 
who had captured and taken possession of the gen- 
eral government, and were, therefore, entitled to 
no consideration in the distribution of rewards. 
These must go to Virginia, Pennsylvania, and 
other states, where many citizens who had shown 
their patriotism by their labors in electing the 
president were now waiting in expectation of re- 
ceiving their share in the division of what had 
been won at that election. Personal fitness for 
office was found in the fact that claims had been 
established by labors in securing the election of 
the presidential incumbent, and this, if not suffi- 
cient for all cases, would seem to have been 
thought ample in the case of a merely territorial 
position. But circumstances of a more personal 
nature might also have some influence, and it 
therefore caused no surprise when Mr. John T. 
Mason of Virginia, brother-in-law to the late 
Postmaster-general Barry, but wholly ignorant of 



208 MICHIGAN. 

the territory and its people, was appointed terri- 
torial secretary. What fitness he might have de- 
veloped for the office no one can tell, as he soon 
elected not to discharge its duties, and went 
abroad on an enterprise for private parties. The 
president thereupon transferred the appointment 
to Stevens T. Mason, his son. The only reason 
ever advanced for this selection, and the only one 
that could have existed, was that the father re- 
quested it. 

The appointment of a successor to Governor 
Cass had not as yet been made, and by law the 
new secretary would be acting governor and also 
acting superintendent of Indian affairs. A rumor 
soon spread that young Mason was under the age 
of legal majority ; that in fact he was but nineteen 
years of age ; and his personal appearance indi- 
cated the truth of the rumor. A committee of 
citizens was thereupon appointed to inquire into 
the facts ; and on calling upon him was frankly 
told by the young gentleman that he was indeed 
under age, but he added that the president very 
well knew the fact when he made the appoint- 
ment. Young as the secretary was, he had not 
failed to imbibe the spirit which was dictating the 
distribution of political favors ; and he justified 
the appointment to the committee on the ground 
that the emoluments of the office were needed 
for the support of his father's family while the 
father was absent from the country. To a com- 



THE HUMOR OF THE PRESIDENT. 209 

mittee, some of whose members had the old-fash- 
ioned notion that offices were to be created and 
filled on public, not on private considerations, the 
reason assigned seemed only an aggravation of 
the original wrong. The papers of the day de- 
clared that the people of the territory were out- 
raged by this attempt to place a boy in authority 
over gray heads. Even the Indians, it was said, 
would know better than this. " They know, if we 
do not, that age and talents are to be treated with 
respect, and that boys are not to mingle in the 
councils of the elders ; much less to assume au- 
thority over them." But the people wasted breath 
and the editors their ink. The president was 
taking care of his friends, and was making prece- 
dents to be followed and enjoyed by many suc- 
cessors. If it pleased him to send a boy to sit in 
the seat of Cass and play governor, complaints of 
the people concerned would no more move him 
than the howling of wild beasts in their forests. 
The official organ at Washington, a large part of 
whose business it was to defend removals made at 
the mere will of the president, did indeed take 
notice of the complaints, but only to advance, 
with assumed gravity, in reply to their protests, 
that as young Mason, whether properly appointed 
or not, was now in office, he could not with pro- 
priety be removed so long as he was not guilty of 
official misconduct ; and with this answer the peo- 
ple were forced to content themselves as best they 

14 



210 MICHIGAN. 

might. But in a new country, with much that is 
new constantly demanding attention, a good-na- 
tured people are not likely to nurture resentments ; 
and when, at a parting banquet to the late gov- 
ernor, after wine had flowed freely and merriment 
was at its height, the elder Mason appealed to the 
assembled guests to "give the boy a trial," they 
responded with hearty good nature, and promised 
him their support. 

The appointment of governor fell to George B. 
Porter of Pennsylvania, a lawyer in large practice 
whose engagements kept him away from the terri- 
tory for nearly a year, and who was frequently 
absent afterwards. Mason was, therefore, acting 
governor for nearly the whole remaining period of 
territorial existence. But the boy-governor was 
conciliatory in his ways ; he was genial according 
to the customs of the times ; there was very little 
for him to do until the boundary controversy with 
Ohio broke out, and when it did, he pleased the 
people by the spirited manner in which he es- 
poused and defended the rights of the territory, 
and in the end, after by actual occupancy of the 
office he had acquired some fitness for its duties, 
his administration became as popular as at first it 
had been obnoxious. 

But Jackson was not satisfied with sending on 
executive officers from distant states ; he removed 
the judges, who were performing their duties satis- 
factorily, that he might give their places to gen- 



IMMIGRATION INTO MICHIGAN. 211 

tlemen from New York and Pennsylvania who 
wanted them. One of the judges removed was 
William Woodbridge, an able lawyer and an up- 
right man, whose character was above reproacd. 
The feeling against his removal was very strong 
and the members of the bar gave expression to 
it in a public testimonial. Seven years later he 
became governor of the State, and was shortly 
after elected senator in Congress. 

The stream of immigration continued to pour 
into the territory, and early in 1832 the question 
of applying for admission to the Union began to 
be agitated. The major part of the immigration 
was from New England, New York, and Ohio, and 
was of people accustomed to self-rule, who valued 
highly the privilege of choosing their own officers. 
They were, besides, coming to understand how 
invaluable were the natural resources of the terri- 
tory, and were vaguely forming in their minds 
schemes for development by means of canals and 
railroads. It was supposed there were, by this 
time, fifty thousand people in the territory, and in 
another year there would be more than sixty 
thousand. It was one of the articles of compact 
in the Ordinance of 1787 that so soon as any of the 
three or five states to be formed out of the North- 
west Territory " shall have sixty thousand free in- 
habitants therein, such state shall be admitted by 
its delegates into the Congress of the United 
States on an equal footing with the original states 



212 MICHIGAN. 

in all respects whatever." It seemed proper, 
therefore, to take the opinion of the people on the 
rjuestion of forming a state government, and an 
flection was held in the fall of 1832 at which a 
large majority of votes was cast for the proposi- 
tion. But other matters were this year interesting 
the people more than matters of government. 
War with Indians on the Mississippi, known as 
Black Hawk's War, had broken out and spread a 
vague terror through the country as far east as 
Lake Erie. The cholera also made its appearance 
in Michigan, and its ravages at Detroit were so 
alarming that hundreds fled in dismay to the 
woods where many died or were devoured by wild 
beasts. The ti-oops sent forward by steamboat to 
the scene of military operations died in such num- 
bers that general panic prevailed, and the solemn 
custom of ringing the passing bell for the departed, 
which up to this time had been observed in De- 
troit, became so continuous and so fearful a mes- 
sage of warning in the ears of the people, and 
added so much to the general alarm that it was 
discontinued. Cases of cholera continued to occur 
for the next two years, and in July, 1834, Gov- 
ernor Porter himself died of it. President Jack- 
son nominated Henry D. Gilpin of Pennsylvania 
to the vacancy, but the Senate refused to con- 
firm him and no further attempt was made to fill 
the place. 

Before the alarm caused by the cholera bad 



ENLARGEMENT OF MICHIGAN. 213 

passed away, Detroit was excited by a negro riot 
which led to the most disquieting apprehensions 
of arson and general plunder. There were now 
considerable numbers of negroes in the town, 
some of whom were fugitives from slavery ; and 
it was from an unsuccessful attempt to return 
two of these to their master that the riot arose. 
Some fires occurring near the time were attrib- 
uted to a purpose by the negroes to burn the town ; 
the mayor of the city, in alarm, called upon the 
secretary of war for military protection, and a 
company of soldiers was sent. But the alarm was 
probably without further cause than must always 
exist when a considerable part of the population 
is held in public estimation and treatment as de- 
graded, and it soon died away. 

At this time Michigan was enlarged by the ad- 
dition of the territory west of the Mississippi and 
north of Missouri, as far west as the Missouri and 
White Earth rivers, and counties were laid out 
in that distant country. But the people were 
now becoming earnest in their desire for state gov- 
ernment. A census was ordered in 1834, which 
showed that there were within that portion of the 
territory which by the Ordinance of 1787 was to 
constitute one of the five states 87,278 inhab- 
itants ; considerably more than were necessary to 
entitle it to admission as a state in the Union 
under the compact. Congress was, thei'efore, me- 
morialized to set off the western territory from 



214 MICHIGAN. 

Michigan ; and in anticipation of compliance the 
people west of Lake Michigan were allowed to 
name one of their own number for a delegate in 
Congress. In April, 1835, an election was held of 
delegates to a state convention for forming a state 
constitution, and this convention met at Detroit 
in May and agreed upon a constitution which was 
submitted to the people and approved by them in 
October. 

Tiiis action excited a boundary controversy 
with Ohio which threatened serious consequences. 
To understand its merits it is necessary to go back 
to the Ordinance of 1787. One of the Articles of 
Compact of the ordinance was that there should 
be formed in the Northwest Territory thereby 
organized not less than three nor more than five 
states, and the boundaries were designated. If 
three were formed, they were to be bounded on 
the east and west by lines which now constitute 
the east and west boundaries of Ohio, Indiana, 
and Illinois respectively, but continued north to 
the national boundary. But Congress reserved the 
right to form one or two states in that part of 
the territory which lay north of an east and west 
line drawn through the southerly bend or ex- 
treme of Lake Michigan. This was declared to 
be an article of compact " between the original 
states and the people and the states in said terri- 
tory," and by the express terms of the ordinance 
was to " forever remain unalterable unless by 



CONTROVERSY WITH OHIO. 215 

common consent," and it never by common con- 
sent had been abrogated or changed. On the 
contrary, in the enabling act for the admission of 
Ohio to the Union, the northern boundary of that 
State had been made an east and west line drawn 
through the southern extreme of Lake Michigan, 
running east from its intersection with a due north 
iine from the mouth of the Great Miami, to Lake 
Erie or the territorial line, and thence, with the 
territorial line through Lake Erie to the Pennsyl- 
vania line. The act providing for the organization 
of the Territory of Michigan had made this same 
northern boundary of Ohio the southern boundary 
of Michigan, and the setting off of that territory 
with a western boundary extending through the 
centre of Lake Michigan to its northern point and 
thence north to the national boundary, was re- 
garded as conclusive of the election of Congress to 
form five states instead of three out of the North- 
west Territory ; the farther territory west of Lake 
Michigan having been afterwards attached to 
Michigan for merely temporary purposes of gov- 
ernment. The people of Michigan had, therefore, 
two rights solemnly guarantied to them by the 
ordinance, neither of which could be taken from 
them without their consent. These were, first, to 
have a line drawn due east from the southern ex- 
treme of Lake Michigan for their southern bound- 
ary, and, second, to be admitted to the Union as 
a state on reaching a population of sixty thou- 



216 MICHIGAN. 

sand. Up to this time the Territory had exercised 
jurisdiction to the line in dispute, had appointed 
ojficers, collected taxes, and granted charters to 
corporations which were now without contention 
exercising their corporate functions. 

On the other hand it was said with truth by Ohio, 
that when the Ordinance of 1787 was adopted, the 
true location of the southern extreme of Lake 
Michigan was not known, and was supposed to be 
much farther north than it actually was ; that, 
by some well-informed people, it was supposed, 
even so late as when Ohio was made a state, to be 
so far north that a line drawn due east from it 
would leave the Frenchtown settlement to the 
south of it and therefore within Ohio ; but the 
convention which adopted the constitution for that 
state, under the enabling act of Congress, in order 
to provide for the contingency of the line running 
farther to the south than was commonly supposed, 
had accepted the northern boundary with the pro- 
viso "that if the southerly bend or extreme of 
Lake Michigan should extend so far south that a 
line drawn due east from it should not intersect 
Lake Erie, or if it should intersect said Lake 
Erie east of the mouth of the Miami river of the 
Lakes, then, and in that case with the assent of 
the Congress of the United States, the northern 
boundary of this state shall be established by 
and extend to a line running from the southerly 
extreme of Lake Michigan to the most northerly 



CONTROVERSY WITH OHIO. 217 

extreme of tlio Miami Bay, after intersecting the 
due north line from the mouth of the Great Miami 
River aforesaid, thence northeast to the territorial 
line, and by the said territorial line to the Penn- 
sylvania line." Congress, after the constitution 
containing this proviso had been adopted, had 
declared Ohio a state in the Union, and this, it was 
claimed, was an implied consent to the proviso. 
Congress had since admitted the States of In- 
diana and Illinois to the Union, and in each 
instance had carried the northern boundary con- 
siderably to the north of a line drawn through 
the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan ; 
and this, it was insisted, as the supreme legislative 
authority of the Union, it had undoubted power 
to do, whatever view might be taken of the ordi- 
nance as a "compact." This last claim was dis- 
puted by Michigan, as being equivalent to a claim 
that one party to a compact may annul it at its 
own pleasure ; but it was also denied that in the 
case of the boundary between Ohio and Michigan 
Congress had ever consented to any change. On 
the contrary, it was shown that Ohio had applied 
for the consent of Congress to the boundary as 
proposed by the proviso above given, and had not 
succeeded in obtaining it. The case between Ohio 
and Michigan stood, therefore, upon the Ordinance 
of 1787, unaffected by subsequent congressional 
action ; and what had been done in the cases of 
Indiana and Illinois did not in any way complicate 



218 MICHIGAN. 

or affect it. Possibly those cases might become 
the subjects of legal controversy, and if they should, 
it would be time enough to consider them. 

Such was the condition of the question when 
Governor Lucas of Ohio, early in 1835, procured 
legislation in his state for taking possession of the 
disputed territory, which included the present city 
of Toledo, for the election of officers for it, and for 
running and marking the boundary line accord- 
ing to the Ohio claim. Michigan responded with 
legislation making it highly penal to accept or 
exercise any public office within the territory, ex- 
cept under commission of the United States or 
of Michigan. It was not long before the militia 
were called out on both sides to enforce the re- 
spective claims. An armed collision being thus 
imminent, the president took notice of the conti-o- 
versy and called upon the attorney-general for his 
opinion. The attorney - general responded that 
until Congress should give express assent to the 
change in the Ohio boundary, the territory in dis- 
pute must be considered as belonging to Michigan. 
The position was an embarrassing one to the pres- 
ident. It would be his duty, under the opinion of 
the attorney-general, to restrain the proceedings 
of the Ohio authorities, and to employ for that 
purpose the military power if necessary. But this 
might lose the State of Ohio to the party of which 
the president was the head ; and it was already a 
great state and might possibly hold the balance of 



ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE. 219 

power in the next presidential election. He might 
also displease the States of Indiana and Illinois, 
both of which were interested adversely to the 
Michigan claim. Here were three great states, 
with considerable votes in the electoral college, 
on one side, and a territory with no vote at all on 
the other; and John Quincy Adams might well 
say, as he did : " Never in the course of my life 
have I known a controversy of which all the right 
was so clear on one side, and all the power so 
overwhelmingly on the other ; never a case where 
the temptation was so intense to take the strong- 
est side, and the duty of taking the weakest was 
so thankless." The president, feeling the temp- 
tation and dreading the duty, sent Mr. Richard 
Rush and Mr. B. C. Howard as peace commis- 
sioners to arrange the difficulty, but their efforts 
were without avail. Toledo was the real subject 
of the controversy ; it was indivisible, and there 
could be no compromise in respect to it. 

Meantime the situation was greatly complicated 
by the organization of a state government in 
Michigan, and the assumption of state powers. 
At the same time that the constitution was voted 
upon, state officers, executive and legislative, were 
elected provisionally, who, on the adoption of 
that instrument, assvimed their respective offices. 
Stevens T. Mason, acting governor of the Ter- 
ritory, was elected governor of the State, and Ed- 
ward Mundy, Keuten ant-governor ; judges were 



220 MICHIGAN. 

appointed and courts organized ; the legislature 
met and elected Lucius Lyon and John Norvell 
United States senators. Isaac E. Crary, at the 
general election, had been chosen representative 
in Congress. All this was done under the claim 
that, by the Ordinance of 1787, the people, now 
that the population exceeded sixty thousand, had 
an absolute and indefeasible right to form a state 
government ; and the representatives of the State 
went on to Washington to demand admission to 
the seats in Congress to which they claimed by 
right to be entitled. 

It was very certain, however, that though Michi- 
gan might have a right to recognition as a state, the 
right was not so far absolute as that its observance 
could be compelled. Congress alone could recog- 
nize a state as a member of the Union, and admit 
its representatives to seats in the two houses ; and 
if it should refuse to do this, even in the plainest 
case of right, no' means or method of compelling 
it to take the proper action could possibly exist. 
Michigan, if a state**in fact, was, therefore, a state 
out of the Union, and must stay out of the Union 
until it should please Congress to grant admission. 
Nor was it at all probable that admission would 
be granted while the boundary controversy with 
Ohio remained undetermined. The president was 
known to be displeased with the action of Acting 
Governor Mason in respect to that controversy, 
and in September, 1835, he appointed to succeed 



. MR. HORNER NOT GOVERNOR DE FACTO. 221 

him as governor John S. Horner of Virginia, a 
young man as ignorant of the territory and of the 
people as Mason had been when first appointed. 
When it is considered that Michigan, at this time, 
had a population of not less than a hundred 
thousand people, and that there could probably 
be found in every organized county many persons 
better fitted to be their governor than the man 
sent on to occupy that office, the abuse of the 
appointing power in the case is seen to have been 
most flagrant. The appointee came on and at- 
tempted to act as pacificator, but instead of be- 
ing received with respect, he was treated with 
indifference or subjected to practical jokes, and in 
a public meeting held at Detroit it was plainly 
intimated that the people would not be displeased 
to see him relinquish the duties of his office and 
return to the land of his nativity. 

It was evident that Mr. Horner was not acting 
governor of Michigan, whatever might be his legal 
right or title. The president directed him not to 
recognize the pretended state officers and state 
courts ; but his action in this regard was of no 
importance ; they were recognized by the people, 
and they proceeded in the exercise of the ordinary 
powers of sovereignty, while he, for all practical 
purposes, was an official nonentity. He was not 
long in becoming convinced that his oflBcial in?- 
portance, if not his personal comfort, would be 
enhanced by removal beyond Lake Michigan, to 



222 MICHIGAN. 

the portion of the territory which, in organizinor 
the State, had not been included within it ; and 
he adopted that course and disappeared from 
Michigan history. 

But the condition of things in which a state 
was exercising powers of sovereignty within the 
limits of federal jurisdiction but not in the Union 
was too anomalous for long continuance. The 
president desired to bring it to an end, and Con- 
gress agreed upon a proposition for the admission 
of the State on condition of its resigning the dis- 
puted territory to Ohio and accepting, instead, a 
much larger territory, since known as the Upper 
Peninsula, which included valuable mines of cop- 
per and iron. This proposition was submitted 
to Michigan to be acted upon by a convention of 
delegates chosen by the people for the purpose, 
and if accepted the State was to be immediately 
received into the Union. But the belligerent 
feeling was still too strong for this compromise ; 
and in a convention of delegates held at Ann 
Arbor, September 4, 1836, it was rejected by an 
emphatic vote. Thus a settlement of the difficulty 
was apparently as far off as ever. 

But the interests favoring admission were now 
daily growing more and more powerful. The 
president's wishes on the subject were well known 
to his active partisans, who constituted a strong 
and growing party and had chosen the state offi- 
cers. A presidential election was pending and a 



THE FROST-BITTEN CONVENTION. 223 

very natural desire existed to participate in it. A 
distribution of the public lands or their proceeds 
was one of the issues of the day, and if it took 
place it would be unfortunate if Michigan should 
fail to receive its share. The senators and repre- 
sentatives chosen to seats in Congress were natu- 
rally anxious to occupy them, and politicians were 
equally anxious to be recognized in the distribu- 
tion of federal patronage. And the state officers, 
though supported by the people and in the undis- 
turbed possession of their offices, could not fail to 
realize the fact that acquiescence by the federal 
authorities in the present condition of things would 
only be temporary, and that the time must come 
when there would be a conflict in which the State 
could scarcely fail to be overborne. In short, it 
was manifest that Congress was master of the situ- 
ation ; and that however clear might be the right 
of the State, it must sooner or later accept such 
terms as should be dictated to it. A movement 
for another convention was tlierefore soon on foot, 
which assumed to represent the whole people, 
though in fact originating in the caucuses of the 
Jackson party, and representing that party almost 
exclusively. It suited the purposes of the movers 
in it to speak of their action as the " action of the 
people in their primary capacity ; " a high-sound- 
ing phrase seeming to imply some right and often 
made use of when the purpose is to accomplish 
something of questionable nature by setting aside 



224 MICHIGAN. 

for the time the constitution or the laws. Dele- 
gates were accordingly chosen under the forms 
of regular election who convened at Ann Arbor, 
December 6, 1836, and with no more authority 
than any party caucus, assumed in the name of 
the State, the sovereign power of accepting the 
proposition of Congress. No pretense could be 
more baseless than this assumption of authority 
by the convention ; people ridiculed its meeting 
and christened it the " frost-bitten " convention ; 
but the dominant party in Congress found it con- 
venient to accept its action as a solemn act in state 
government, and on January 26, 1837, the State 
was declared to have accepted the proposition of 
Congress and thereby to have become a member 
of the Federal Union. 

The act which thus assumed to admit Michigan 
to the Union upon a false assumption of fact was 
one which it would have been idle to quarrel with 
or condemn. The State could not maintain its 
anomalous position, and for any wrong in its 
treatment only Congress could give redress. The 
courts, as the seceding states discovered in the 
reconstruction period, are powerless to control 
purely political action, or to call it in question for 
any purpose. The governor protested, but at the 
same time admitted the folly of allowing a boot- 
less grief to delay admission to the Union. The 
grief was neither very deep nor very lasting. The 
State had maintained its honor in standing upon 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 225 

its rights, and the compromise which by a species 
of fraud was forced upon it gave more than it took 
away, and left the State a decided gainer in the 
transaction. The governor did not dismiss the 
subject without indulging in much rhetoric to show 
how greatly the State had been wronged, thus 
affording the opposition a fine opportunity for 
ridicviling "the hero of the bloodless plains of 
Toledo " for unbuckling his sword and coming 
down from his high horse so tamely ; but if all 
his important acts had shown equal wisdom, there 
would have been little in his administration to re- 
member with condemnation. The mock heroics 
put the people in good humor, and they turned 
with cheerful spirits to their peaceful avocations 
as citizens of the United States, readily forgetting 
and forgiving the wrong which was so far from 
having harmed them. The successor of Governor 
Mason went again over the grounds of complaint 
in his first message, but this was a re-threshing of 
old straw, and nobody took any interest in it. 

The constitution under which the State was ad- 
mitted to the Union was carefully restricted to 
prescribing the fundamv^ntals of government and 
the general framework of official organization, and 
did not, as so many recent essays in that direction 
have done, enter the field of legislation. In this 
respect it may well be regarded as a model. Six 
month's residence in the State was made sufficient 
for the exercise of the elective franchise, but, with 

15 



226 MICHIGAN. 

singular liberality, any white male inhabitant who 
was resident iii the State at the time of the adop- 
tion of the constitution was given the ballot, even 
though not a citizen. This made many recent im- 
migrants from Europe voters in both state and 
federal elections, and furnished a striking illus- 
tration of a sentiment very prevalent at the time, 
that the coming to America to enjoy the benefit 
of its institutions was of itself an evidence of fit- 
ness to take part in administering its government. 
It was much like the sentiment developed during 
the civil war, that the oppressed race which had 
been intensely patriotic when the life of the nation 
was threatened by its enemies might be safely 
trusted with the ballot when peace was restored. 

Michigan was the thirteenth of the new states 
admitted to the Union " on an equal footing with 
the original states : " its acceptance of the consti- 
tution doubled the count of the states. It was a 
grand Union to which the State was admitted, and 
it was made such by a constitution which was 
worthy of everlasting regard and affection. But 
the time had not yet come when the people of the 
states were to look to the nation more than to the 
state as the government in which their interests 
were chiefly concerned. The tide of national feel- 
ing was just now flowing very strong, for Jackson 
by his proclamation and Webster by his masterly 
speeches against nullification had rallied the two 
great political parties to the sentiment with which 



REMOTENESS OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 227 

Jackson had begun his administration, — "The 
Federal Union ; it must be preserved." But the 
original constitution was still maintained in its 
integrity, and the dispute over the right of nullifi- 
cation had done nothing to diminish or weaken 
proper state powei'S under it. It had only deter- 
mined, so far as the expressed will of the people 
could do so, that the Union under the constitution 
of Washington and Hamilton and Madison was to 
be perpetual. 

The states under that constitution were very far 
from being dependent provinces or inferior munici- 
palities. Under the apportionment of powers as 
between state and nation, the people looked to the 
national government for very little that touched 
their e very-day life. The general government 
had charge of foreign relations ; but these only in 
a distant and imperfect manner interested the peo- 
ple at large, except when there seemed to be dan- 
ger of unfriendly relations with other countries. 
The general government levied taxes for its own 
purposes, but for the most part it laid them as 
indirect taxes, and they were scarcely perceived 
by the people as burdens. It coined money, but 
in the early period of its history the major part 
of the coin in circulation was of foreign coinage, 
and nearly all of the paper currency was the bills 
of banks existing under state charters which had 
been authorized by state law. It passed bank- 
rupt laws, but these were only for emergencies and 



228 MICHIGAN. 

were soon repealed. Only in the posta^ service 
did it appear before the people as a daily and 
hourly benefactor and friend. The whole subject 
of the domestic relations was left to the states: 
the subject of contracts and domestic trade ; of 
wills and the descent of property ; of land titles 
and the administration of estates ; of the making 
of highways and of their use and control after 
being made ; of providing schools and furnishing 
the means of education to the people ; of granting 
charters of incorporation, and all that infinite va- 
riety of rules and regulations known as laws of 
police, which are ever present and all about the 
citizen, his business and his property, prescribing 
limitations and setting bounds to use and enjoy- 
ment even in respect to that which is unquestion- 
ably his own, that he may not unreasonably en- 
croach upon the use and enjoyment of their own 
by others. State power and state law were thus 
present at all times, touching the citizen for his 
advantage and direction in all his relations : by 
his fireside as much as in his business ; in his mar- 
riage ; in the control, management, and education 
of his children ; in the labor he employed ; in the 
civil and religious organizations to which he at- 
tached himself; in the breaking up of the domes- 
tic relations if unhappily that should occur; in 
the final arrangement of his affairs for death ; in 
the enforcement of debts for and against him in 
life and for and against his estate after death ; in 



THE STATE NEARER THAN THE UNION. 229 

short, in nearly everything which had for him and 
those associated with him — whether in kinship 
or socially or in business — an every-day interest ; 
it was only in respect to his mail that the state 
did not chiefly concern him. The federal govern- 
ment seemed a distant power, indispensable as a 
shield against foreign animosities or encroach- 
ments ; and once in four years the citizen was 
likely to get warmed up in the course of the presi- 
dential campaign so as to feel a deep interest in 
the result, but this would be as often because he 
had inherited a place in one of the parties of the 
day as from any deep conviction that he had a 
personal concern in the choice the people would 
make. It was the state that was an ever-present 
beneficence, in whose doings he had a constant and 
immediate interest, and to whose provident ar- 
rangements he owed daily and hourly obligations. 
But he felt the state in its burdens also : the taxes 
imposed were considerable, and they were also 
direct ; the citizen never paid them without know- 
ing it, as he might pay customs duties, or other 
indirect taxes ; and he had therefore an immedi- 
ate interest in seeing that they were not levied 
for any but proper public purposes, and not ex- 
pended dishonestly or wastefully. Almost all the 
local officers, except the postmaster, were also pro- 
vided for and chosen, under state laws ; so that in 
every way the state seemed vastly more important 
to the citizen than the nation ; and the range of 



230 MICHIGAN. 

subjects over which it had supreme control was 
so vast, and the subjects themselves so important, 
that state sovereignty seemed to the fireside phi- 
losophers, as they discussed politics with each 
other, a more palpable and conspicuous constitu- 
tional reality than the sovereignty of the Union. 
It was somewhat different in the large commercial 
towns, where foreign trade was considerable, and 
also in towns where large expenditures were made 
for military and naval purposes, or land offices lo- 
cated ; but the agricultural and laboring classes of 
the country naturally attached themselves to state 
interests ; and as parties divided on the construc- 
tion of federal powers, the majority tended to the 
party that proposed to maintain in all their integ- 
rity the rights of the states. 

Then the courts for the administration of jus- 
tice were, for the most part, state courts, and the 
state regulated civil rights and prescribed and pun- 
ished crimes. The federal judiciary had under 
its control the subjects of bankruptcy and admi- 
ralty, of controversies between states, and contro- 
versies in which foreign countries or their people 
might be concerned ; and citizens of different 
states might implead each other in federal courts ; 
and there were a few other cases which might be 
there brought. But nearly all the litigation of 
the countiy was in the state courts : they were 
the courts in which neighborhood controversies 
were determined ; they sat with a neighborhood 



A NATURAL STATE PRIDE. 231 

jury and they were the courts whose doings were 
immediately before the people and enlisted their 
interest and attention. 

The time had not yet come for great expendi- 
tures of money by the general government upon 
works of internal improvement, or for great gifts 
of land to aid in the construction of such works. 
The party of strict construction of federal powers 
was in the ascendency, and disputed the power of 
the nation to make highways in the states, except 
as for strictly national purposes it might become 
important. Neither had the time for high pro- 
tective duties yet come to interest great numbers 
of people in the customs taxes, and bring great 
lobbies to Washington. 

It may well be said, therefore, that it was some- 
thing to be proud of, to be a member of a com- 
monwealth possessing the sovereign powers which 
were possessed by the states of the American 
Union ; and the people of Michigan accepted their 
place as citizens of the twenty-sixth state, not with 
pride merely, but with unbounded confidence in 
its future. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE STATE AND ITS ELEMENTS. 

The period of immaturity and tutelage was at 
last over, and the people who constituted the 
political society had become a state in the Amer- 
ican Union with sovereign powers. They were 
well entitled to a recognition of this privilege of 
independent action, for their numbers were am- 
ple, the average of intelligence was high, and the 
elements of a vigorous and self-respecting state 
were to be seen on all sides in abundance. 

The French-Canadian element was still con- 
spicuous along all the eastern border of the state, 
and the increase was large and continuous, though 
the proportion relatively to the whole population 
was all the while diminishing. The grades of 
society among this people ran from highest to 
lowest : many of them boasted, with much pride, 
of aristocratic descent, and had inherited large 
wealth ; and these constituted an intelligent and 
refined society into which the better classes of 
other nationalities were glad to be admitted. At 
the other extreme in the social scale were the 
goureurs de hois and voyageurs^ who still were to 



THE FRENCH FARMS. 233 

be found in considerable numbers, though their 
occupations, except upon the upper waters, were 
for the most part gone ; the fur trade in Michi- 
gan being no longer the large and profitable com- 
merce it once was, and no considerable parties 
being now organized to conduct it. But these rov- 
ing characters still gathered about the old French 
settlements, and took up, when they labored at 
all, such occupations as made their lives most 
nearly correspond to those they had been accus- 
tomed to lead. Many became professional fisher- 
men; others got to be draymen and petty express- 
men with little carts and ponies. And then above 
these lowest classes, the French in and about the 
towns were found in numerous employments ; 
many being market-gardeners and hucksters, many 
others merchants in a small way ; and whatever 
the business, women were not unfrequently the 
principals in carrying it on. But this people had 
their part in more extensive operations also ; and 
some of the leading and most prosperous business 
men were of this nationality. 

French farms may almost be said to have lined 
the river from the mouth of the Detroit to Lake 
St. Clair ; their houses fronted upon the road 
which ran along the river bank, and there was 
only a narrow belt of cultivation behind them, 
bordered by dense forest, in which wolves, bears, 
and other wild animals still offered pastime to the 
sportsmen. The agriculture of the farmers was 



234 MICHIGAN. 

of the most primitive character ; the plow, except 
the share, was of wood ; with a wooden wheel on 
either side of the long beam, the one small to run 
on the land side, and the other larger to run in 
the furrow. Oxen were fastened to this plow by 
a pole which had a hinged attachment ; they were 
not yoked, but the draught was by thongs or 
ropes fastened about their horns. A little two- 
wheeled cart into which was fastened a pony, or 
perhaps a cow or steer, was the principal farm 
vehicle. The early farmers did not appreciate the 
value of manure in agriculture, and removed it 
out of their way by dumping it in the river, but 
they were beginning now to learn in that regard 
better ways. The houses for the most part were 
of a single story with a plain veranda in front ; 
and here in pleasant weather would gather the 
household for domestic labor and social recreation. 
The houses of the wealthier classes were of hewed 
logs, with a large chimney occupying the space of 
a room in the centre, and a garret hung with fes- 
toons of drying or dried fruits, pumpkins, garlics, 
onions, and medicinal and culinary herbs. The 
family washing was done at the river, and the 
pounding of the clothes was with a little hand 
mallet, after the method of their ancestors from 
time immemorial. Everywhere the spinning-wheel 
was in use, and the madam, with just pride in her 
deftness, made the clothing for the family. The 
kitchen was a common gathering-room for the 



SIMPLICITY OF MANNERS. 235 

family, who liked to see the cookery going on, 
with pots and kettles and spiders in an open fire- 
place. Around many of the old houses and yards 
were pickets of cedar, ten or twelve feet in height, 
which were originally planted for defense against 
the Indians ; but the Indians who had their 
homes about the towns were no longer feared, and 
were generally nominal Catholics and well treated. 
The only fastening to the front door of the house 
was a latch on the inside, which was raised to 
open the door by a strip of leather or deer's hide 
run through a hole in the door, and hanging down 
on the outside. When the latch-string was drawn 
in the door was fastened ; but so marked an indi- 
cation of distrust or inhospitality was seldom wit- 
nessed, as no one — not even an Indian — would 
be guilty of so great a breach of propriety as to 
lift the latch and cross the threshold without per- 
mission of the owner. The family when leaving 
the house temporarily did not therefore deem it 
necessary to fasten the door. 

The horse in common use was so small as to be 
considered and called a pony, and was reputed to 
be a cross of the wild Mexican horse with mares 
captured at the time of Braddock's defeat. The 
French had been long enough in the country to 
have old orchards of apples and pears : pear-trees 
fifty or sixty feet in height, and bearing in a sea- 
son thirty or even fifty bushels of fruit were not 
uncommon, and the fruit, though not of the high' 



236 MICHIGAN. 

est quality to eat out of hand, was unsurpassed 
for culinary purposes. There were crude cider 
mills, and much cider was made for domestic use. 
Peaches were raised, also, of a poor and common 
sort, and from these distilled in rum a drink was 
made which was much used. 

The French, whether rich or poor, educated or 
ignorant, were always polite, light-hearted, gay, 
and buoyant, and always fond of sports in which 
old and young could participate together. Fes- 
tivals were kept with unrestrained enjoyment : 
New Year's especially, when every child, whatever 
the age, was expected to kneel for the paternal 
blessing ; when calls were made upon all ac- 
quaintances, presents exchanged between friends, 
and every lady was expected to submit to be 
saluted with a kiss upon the cheek. Mardi Gras 
and Easter were also festivals of great enjoyment, 
but Lent came with devotional aspect, and was 
scrupulously kept. They were a church-going 
people, and many religious customs were still 
kept up which were destined to die out. The 
christening and baptizing of the church bell was 
one of these, and so was the distributing of the 
blessed bread in church in commemoration of the 
love-feasts of the early Christians. But when 
church services were over on Sunday sports were 
in order, and the return home was likely to be a 
scene of boisterous merriment and of pony racing 
by the young men. The marriage of young people 



DETROIT IN 1S37. 237 

was a great occasion, for they understood well that 
the church did not allow of divorces, and the 
marriage was in fact what it purported to be, a 
binding for better or for worse for life. Regularly 
it was preceded by a formal contract before a 
notary ; the bans were published for three suc- 
cessive Sundays in church, and the wedding fes- 
tivities were kept up for several days. But man 
or woman who after losing the spouse married a 
second time, and especially a third time, must 
expect a charivari^ with which no police officer 
would trouble himself to interfere. The average 
of education among the people was low, for many 
never went to school at all, and the church schools, 
in which most of the education was given, were not 
of a high order, and taught catechism more than 
grammar or arithmetic. The ladies were fond of 
gay and picturesque dresses and of flowers and 
other simple decorations for themselves and their 
homes, and in these particulars good taste was 
general. 

Detroit in this year 1837 had become a consid- 
erable town, having now perhaps eight thousand 
people. Old wind-mills upon which the people 
formerly relied for the grinding of cereals were 
coming now to be disused, though some were still 
standing. The noble river in front of the town 
offered, at all seasons of the year, many induce- 
ments to sports and festivities, of which all classes 
of the people were eager to avail themselves. In 



238 MICHIGAN. 

the winter, when frozen over, it became the prin- 
cipal highway, and was gay with the swift-going 
vehicles. A narrow box upon runners wide apart 
made the common sleigh, and the ponies, some- 
times driven tandem, seemed to enter into the 
spirit of racing almost as much as their masters. 
When there was no snow the little cart was the 
common vehicle of land carriage for all classes of 
the people ; ladies went in it to church and to 
parties, and made fashionable calls, being seated 
on a buffalo robe spread on the bottom, and they 
were backed up to the door at which they wished 
to alight, and stepped upon the threshold from it. 
Now and then there was a family which had a 
caleche; a single carriage with the body hung 
upon heavy leathern straps, with a small low seat 
in front for the driver, and with a folding top to 
be raised in sun or rain. But the cart was a con- 
venience which all classes could enjoy and appre- 
ciate, and it was especially adapted to a town like 
Detroit, which was built upon a clay-bank, and 
had as yet neither sidewalk nor pavement. 

Many Scotch were now among the business men 
of Detroit, with a fondness for making money, 
and a shrewd knack at doing so. There were also 
some Irish and some English, but the major part 
of the people who were not French were of Amer- 
ican birth. Among these there were now being 
established — what in fact had existed before, 
though not in much strength — societies for liter- 



RIVAL SETTLEMENTS. 239 

ary culture and enjoyment. The Detroit Young 
Men's Society was one of them, which for twenty 
years was to be an important institution in the 
town, and the training-school of governors, sen- 
ators, and judges. At the barracks, though there 
was none now, there would shortly be a small 
military force to preserve peace on the frontier ; 
and the ofl&cers and their families would consti- 
tute an important and valuable addition to the 
society of the place at all times. 

Detroit during the territorial period had to a 
large extent monopolized political offices and in- 
fluence, but though still the capital and the com- 
mercial metropolis, its political domination had 
dwindled to a disputed hegemony. Important 
towns were springing up all over the southern 
part of the State, and several of them were already 
prominent, and had public journals which were 
conducted with ability, and citizens who were well 
known abroad and whose influence was felt in 
other sections. Monroe, Ann Arbor, Marshall, 
Tecumseh, Pontiac, and Adrian were the largest 
of these, and none of them was without ambi- 
tious men who aspired to leading positions in state 
affairs, and with ability to justify the aspiration. 
Wealth was as yet an unimportant source of in- 
fluence, for there were few men of special prom- 
inence in that regard- The merchants handled 
most money: they went once or twice a year to 
New York to buy goods, and in the country they 



240 MICHIGAN. 

were obliged to keep general assortments of dry- 
goods, wet and dry groceries, hardware, and boots 
and shoes ; but wants were moderate in those days, 
and the stock though general in kind was small in 
amount and cheap in quality. By far the larger 
part of the people were small farmers who were 
now busy in bringing their land under cultivation ; 
their fortunes were in their farms, and they sub- 
ordinated everything else to converting their own 
labor into substantial and permanent value in 
improvements. Many of them were of New Eng- 
land descent ; all the New England States were 
represented among them, and Vermont especially 
had sent a large contingent who were tired of 
rocky hillsides. But the majority were one gen- 
eration removed from New England, being de- 
scendants of those who settled in New York and 
Ohio. Western New York, especially, was largely 
represented ; the purchasers by " article " from the 
great land companies of that district, having in 
many cases found themselves unable to complete 
their payments, had been glad to sell their " bet- 
terments " for enough to buy a lot of government 
land in Michigan and move with their families ' 
upon it. 

It was a hard life which the pioneer farmers of 
Michigan had come to lead. A rude log cabin for 
a home, and the bare necessaries of life for their 
families contented them while they were clearing 
their lands ; and the lessons of industry and econ- 



THE SUPPLY OF FOOD. 241 

omy would have been forced upon them by the 
situation even if they had not learned them before, 
as the most of them had. When the cheapness of 
land is taken into account, their farms must be 
deemed small, averaging perhaps a hundred and 
twenty acres ; and hard labor and the chills and 
fever incident to the clearing of a new country 
gave them sallow complexions and made them pre- 
maturely old ; but in coming to Michigan they had 
calculated not so much upon their own immediate 
advantage as upon giving their children an oppor- 
tunity to " grow up with the country ; " and they 
accomplished all they had counted on if they could 
see that year by year their possessions increased 
in value, and could rely with confidence upon giv- 
ing their children the rudiments of education and 
a fair start in the world, and on being independ- 
ent in their circumstances in their old age. Even 
now, though they could not supply all their wants 
from their farms, they contracted few debts, but 
postponed pvirchases when they had nothing to 
barter for the articles they desired. 

Of meats salt pork was the staple, and many of 
the people rarely had any other, but all had wheat 
or corn bread and potatoes, and a hearty appetite 
need crave nothing better. Many orchards were 
planted, but few were as yet in bearing, and fruit 
was a rare luxury ; the people had little money 
with which to procure it from the Eastern States, 
and none at all to expend in the extravagance of 

16 



242 MICHIGAN. 

Southern fruits, which in after years were to be- 
come so common. They were forced, therefore, to 
be content with the wild fruits of the country. Of 
the wild crab or wild plum a preserve was made 
which was palatable as a relish to the monotonous 
diet of pork, and if a few wild strawberries could 
be gathered in June, or blackberries later, they 
were great as well as rare luxuries. In the 
swamps cranberries could be found to a limited 
extent, and on sandy plains whortleberries, but 
the resources in all these directions were limited 
and exceptional. For a time there would be deer, 
wild turkeys, and other game in considerable 
quantities, but the pioneer farmers of Michigan 
had little time to give to sport, and those who 
engaged very much in it were likely to become so 
far fascinated with its excitements as to fall grad- 
ually into the life of thriftless wood-rangers. 
On the prairies wild bees were abundant, and in 
the fascinating pages of Cooper one may read how 
men became skillful in following them to their 
homes and robbing them of their delicious stores. 
In some parts of central and northern Michigan 
the maple-tree furnished sugar orchards, and the 
Indians who still lingered in the State were sugar 
makers to a considerable extent. They also gath- 
ered berries in their season for barter with the 
white settlers, camping in temporary colonies for 
the purpose. 

Few of the pioneers had brought their spinning- 



PRIMITIVE CUSTOMS. 243 

wheels with them, for as yet there were but few 
sheep in the State, and by the time wool had be- 
come abundant, the old ways of working it up had 
passed away. For a while the material for gar- 
ments, which in rural New England and New 
York were home-made, must be bought ; but 
cheap, coarse cloth answered the purpose, and the 
wives and daughters made it up for use. The 
pioneers could not be particular about other quali- 
ties of their cloth than those of wear and comfort, 
and nobody would criticise the style or the fit. 
Silks for the woman and broadcloth for the man 
were rare extravagances ; many a bridegroom des- 
tined to become an important personage in busi- 
ness and political circles went to the altar in Ken- 
tucky jean, and received his bride in calico ; and 
the wedding journey from the bride's home to the 
husband's was made with an ox-team which was 
prized more than would be a chariot and four be- 
cause of what it promised in farm improvement. 
If it was winter the vehicle might be a home- 
made sled with bent saplings for runners ; and 
nothing could be better, for nothing could be 
more suited to the times. There was little senti- 
mentality in this, but there was New England 
hard sense, and good promise of domestic virtues 
and contentment. 

In early times pioneers sometimes made meal 
of their corn by pounding it in a hollow stump, 
but this was seldom done at this time. Other 



244 MICHIGAN. 

contrivances, however, which were nearly as prim- 
itive, were sometimes resorted to. One ingenious 
person had constructed a mill, which answered an 
admirable purpose, by felling a tall tree and exca- 
vating a trough the whole length of it on the 
upper side as it lay. The trough was a foot in 
width at the top, narrowing as it deepened ; a 
small quantity of corn was poured into it, and 
was then ground into meal by means of a heavy 
wooden wheel rolling over it. The wheel was a 
section cut from the butt of the tree, and shaped 
to fit the trough, and was rolled back and forth 
by two persons who took the ends of a pole which 
was run through the centre of it. The use of the 
mill was free to all, and it was a great neighbor- 
hood convenience. But wheat, rather than corn, 
was the staple bread food in Michigan, and these 
rude contrivances would not make flour. The 
grist mill must be resorted to ; and that might be 
a day's journey away, and the farmer who went 
that distance with his small grist was never quite 
sure that he would not find the mill out of repair, 
or not running from want of water, or because the 
miller was prostrated by one of the fevers inci- 
dent to a new country ; and then he might be 
compelled to go farther to another mill, or to re- 
trace his steps and repeat his tedious journey at 
another time. 

Except in southwestern Michigan where there 
were prairies, the first necessity of the time was 



THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 245 

to get rid of the forest, and the short way to get 
rid of it was to cut and burn it without discrimi- 
nation. For none of it was there a market, and 
many a great black walnut, the growth of centu- 
ries and fit for the adornment of a palace, was 
given to the flames because it cumbered the 
ground. In clearing up the farm the whole family 
could take useful part ; the man chopped and piled 
the logs, the woman piled and burned the brush, 
leaving the babe, if there was one, in some con- 
venient shade where it would be kept quiet in 
watching the busy proceedings. The pine country 
was not as yet much invaded by settlers, and the 
tulip-tree or white-wood, which was light and 
easily worked, was the favorite tree for lumber. 
Saw-mills of the primitive sort were common, and 
the farmers, as fast as they were able to do so, put 
up a " framed " house and moved into it, leaving 
the log cabin as a common store-house and work- 
shop for rainy days. The moving from the old 
house into the new was the second stage of pio- 
neer life, and there was likely to be a " house- 
warming," of which a dance was the chief feature. 
Of the religious condition of the people little 
need be said. Though there were many excel- 
lent and sincerely religious persons among them, 
religion had not been a motive with them in 
coming into the wilderness. They had come to 
better their temporal condition, and the hardships 
and privations of every sort which are incident 



246 MICHIGAN. 

to life in the woods they had expected to submit 
to cheerfully. The Canadian French had their 
priests and maintained regular church services, 
but as to the main part of the population Mich- 
igan might be regarded as missionary ground. 
Many devoted Christians were for years without 
opportunity to attend church services ; and some 
so greatly longed for the society of their brethren 
in Christian communion that they would go a 
day's journey, or even farther, to attend a meet- 
ing. The several denominations sent missionaries 
hither who came expecting to undergo great hard- 
ships and submit to many privations, and none 
were disappointed in that regard. The Meth- 
odists were commonly first in gathering congrega- 
tions in the new settlements, and the circuit rider 
was often a character of note; rough and unlet- 
tered and ready to boast, perhaps, that the Lord 
had been his teacher from the Bible, and not the 
school- masters with their foolish grammars. But 
such men were often sincere and earnest, and be- 
ing all things to all men, gathered considerable 
churches and laid the foundation upon which 
others more competent afterward built. This was 
the day of camp-meetings and revivals, and strange 
scenes were sometimes witnessed when people had 
" the power " and fell to the ground helpless. 
Rough characters gathered at such meetings for 
excitement and mischief, and they often became 
scenes of wild disorder and pugilistic encounters. 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 247 

But it sometimes happened that those who came 
to scoff remained to pray. At this time there 
were many churches of other denominations ; of 
Baptists and Presbyterians especially, and, in 
some places, of Episcopalians; and these, except 
the Episcopalians, had their occasional revival or 
protracted meetings. In the country districts, 
the school-house was generally the place for re- 
ligious meetings, and perhaps the same house 
would be occupied by two or more denominations 
alternately, morning and evening, or on successive 
Sundays. But church edifices began to multiply 
rapidly. Said hopeful Abi Evans, in a letter from 
her solitary cabin in Tecumseh in 1824, "Per- 
haps I may see the day when the gospel may be 
preached at our place." It was now but thirteen 
years since her letter was written, and there were 
several churches near enough to her home to be 
reached by an early morning walk on Sunday. 
But this was an exceptional case ; many of her 
sisters who were not so fortunate in their loca- 
tions would live longer than she and yet pass 
away without having similar aspirations gratified. 
In southeastern Michigan were many people of 
the society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, 
who dressed in sober drab and took off the hat 
and applied title of honor to no one. These had 
their plain meeting-houses without spire or bell, 
in which they gathered, and, discarding all music, 
listened to words of wisdom from the elders, if 



248 MICHIGAN. 

the spirit should move them to speak. The speak- 
ers at these meetings were perhaps as often as 
otherwise women, who seemed to have special 
gifts. The Friends were a sober, industrious, 
steady, and thrifty people, and their general integ- 
rity and fidelity were so well known that they 
were often invited by their fellow citizens to serve 
in important public stations. They were the first 
of the people to raise their voices against slavery, 
and the fugitive slave was always befriended and 
protected by them. The first " wood-notes wild " 
which caught the ear of the world from Michigan 
were the anti-slavery poems of Elizabeth Mar- 
garet Chandler ; and these were well worthy of 
being listened to and of being held in lasting re- 
membrance. Some of the few negroes in the 
State were fugitives from slavery, but they felt 
safe so far back in the woods with sympathizing 
friends about them, and Canada was a convenient 
refuge in case attempts were made at their recap- 
ture. 

Michigan had its full share of lawyers, many of 
whom were well trained in their profession, and 
would be a credit to it anywhere. Others were 
untrained, unlettered, and unkempt, and their vul- 
garity and insolence would be tolerated nowhere 
but in the woods. They tried small cases for 
smaller pay on still smaller knowledge, and were 
never so well satisfied as when they gained a suit 
by a trick. Doctors there were in plenty, too, 



POSTAL FACILITIES. 249 

who rode the country on horseback, with medi- 
cines in saddle-bags, and dealt out such doses of 
calomel and jalap as would seem to render impos- 
sible the survival of any but the fittest. But in 
those early days the calls upon the doctor bore 
small proportion to the number of cases of disease ; 
the people doctored themselves with various de- 
coctions of bitter herbs and other simples which 
were popularly supposed to have healing qualities. 
The women were midwives to one another as oc- 
casion required. 

The postal facilities of the people were as yet 
very primitive. The railroad from Toledo to 
Adrian brought a daily mail, but this was as yet 
the only railroad in operation in the State, though 
considerable had been done on the roads from 
Detroit to Pontiac, Detroit to Ypsilanti, and Pal- 
myra to Jackson. But the daily mail was not 
now limited exclusively to the railroad ; one was 
sent out also in coaches on some of the leading 
territorial roads. A few years before it was made 
subject of complaint in the " Detroit Gazette " that 
the driver of the coach was not provided with a 
horn to announce his coming ; but he had one now 
and he sounded it vigorously as he approached a 
mail station, and brought his horses up smoking, 
with a brisk trot, if the state of the roads was 
such as to admit of it. But from the time the 
fall rains set in until the roads became dry in the 
spring there was little brisk movement of stage- 



250 MICHIGAN. 

coaches, and the driver must be content if he 
could go over the roads at the rate of three or 
four miles an hour without any breakdown. And 
much of the mail service of the State was done 
with considerably more modest conveyances than 
coaches ; to some extent with lumber wagons, but 
much more largely on horseback. A horse and a 
boy going over the road perhaps twice a week 
were sufficient on most routes. Congressional 
documents were not at this time sent into the 
State by the ton, the people took few papers, and 
the correspondence by letter was too expensive to 
be much indulged in. The postage on a letter 
from the old home of most of the people was 
twenty-five cents, and money was not so plenty as 
to admit of frequent communication. The post- 
office was likely to be a box in one corner of a 
store or tavern, and the postmaster, when a letter 
was called for, turned over the whole pile until he 
found it. 

The backwoods pioneers were not without their 
sports and pastimes. The State paid a bounty for 
the scalp of the wolf, and this furnished sufficient 
inducement to make the people eager to trap him. 
A whole neighborhood sometimes turned out to 
hunt a troublesome bear which had been carrying 
off swine, and once a year or so they would di- 
vide into two parties and engage in a great con- 
test, to see which should bring home the most 
game of all kinds, estimating the animals from 



SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 251 

bears and wolves down to squirrels, according to 
importance. A raccoon heard of in the corn-field 
always gave occasion for extemporized sport, and 
the young farmer was seldom so much fatigued 
by his day's labor as to be disinclined to turn 
out for a 'coon hunt which might extend far 
into the night and require the cutting down of 
one or more large trees. Husking-bees, after corn 
harvest, and raising-bees when a new house or 
barn was to go up, were occasions for general 
merriment, and something to drink of a stimulat- 
ing nature was expected on these occasions, for the 
day of total abstinence had as yet come to very 
few. Still, although nearly all persons drank 
occasionally, an habitual drunkard at this early 
day was rarely met with. In the winter, if snow 
fell to the depth of two or three inches, a sleigh- 
ing party might seem to spring up spontaneously, 
and the home-made sleigh was amply good enough 
for such diversion. An old furniture box or a 
crockery crate filled with straw made a good body 
for it, and as many rode as could manage to find 
sitting or standing room. Every tavern had its 
ball-room, where dancing parties were given, to 
which any one might come who could purchase a 
card of admission ; for there are no gradations of 
society in a new settlement, and every man and 
every woman is presumptively respectable. These 
parties were very simple affairs, but they were not 
for that reason the less enjoyable by the hard- 



252 MICHIGAN. 

working pioneers. The spelling-school furnished 
great sport also : whole neighborhoods, young and 
old, gathered and chose sides in a spelling contest, 
and the youthful prodigy, perhaps, spelled all the 
rest down, not excepting the doctor or the mer- 
chant who were educated at the academy. The 
amusement reached a climax when the master 
himself was caught tripping and was obliged to 
take his seat in confusion. The morals of the 
people at this time were better than appearances 
might indicate. Coarse profanity and vulgarity 
were heard so often that they failed to shock the 
hearer, and treating at a public bar was common 
when friends met and on all sorts of occasions. 
But domestic scandals were exceedingly rare, and 
divorces almost unknown. Society was very prim- 
itive and there was little courtesy and less polish, 
but there was no social corruption and parents 
had faith in each other and little fear for the mor- 
als of their children. The general standard of 
business integrity was high, and as the time had 
not yet come when great funds were needed for 
the purposes of political campaigns, elections were 
honestly conducted. 

On the whole, it must be said of the pioneers 
of Michigan, that in character and aims, in what 
they were, what they did, what they suffered, and 
what they accomplished, they deserve, and should 
have, the grateful remembrance of those who, com- 
ing after them, reap the harvest of their sowing. 



THE PATRIOT AGITATION. 253 

This year began in Canada the " Patriot " agi- 
tation, which led in 1838-39 to partial insurrec- 
tions, and to some acts of violation of neutrality 
by American citizens in crossing to Canada to as- 
sist the insurgents. The most lamentable of these 
was a crossing from Detroit to Windsor in De- 
cember, 1838, and a fight resulting in the loss of a 
number of lives. The occurrence is noteworthy 
here only as it evidenced the intense sympathy 
of the people with the struggle of any other peo- 
ple for greater liberty. The international com- 
plications which followed were settled by the 
treaty of 1842 under the admirable management 
of Mr. Webster, which reflected new honor upon 
American diplomacy, already so illustrious. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

MONEY IS MADE ABUNDANT IN THE NEW STATE. 

The new State was now in the Union, and it 
was enjoying the benefits of an immigration al- 
most unparalleled in the history of mankind. It 
was not the movement of men in tribes or ag- 
gregate bodies, impelled by necessity or by polit- 
ical considerations to abandon their country for 
another ; but it was an immigration of individual 
families, influenced by motives which affected 
them severally, and by an expectation that they 
would benefit their condition in so doing. Yet the 
aggregate number was enormous, and it seemed 
like the migration of a nation coming with radiant 
hopes to take possession of a land of promise. 
Their coming seemed to make the State rich ; for 
though very few of them were persons of consid- 
erable means, the most of them came as pro- 
ducers, and if they brought nothing else they 
brought a capacity for labor and an expectation 
that by labor they were to make their fortunes. 
Their coming had rendered necessary many new 
facilities for travel and business ; and the legis- 
lature had been prompt to recognize the fact. 



LAND SPECULATIONS. 255 

During the short period while Michigan had been 
a State but not in the Union, there had been legis- 
lation providing for the organization of fifty-seven 
townships, and the laying out of sixty-six state 
roads ; eleven railroads had been chartered and 
nine banks ; and permission had been given to 
construct thirteen dams upon navigable waters for 
manufacturing purposes. Much of this legisla- 
tion was premature, as we can very plainly see 
now ; but it did not then seem so to the people. 
General causes were inflating prices and inciting 
to speculation all over the country ; the market 
values of land were rapidly increasing, and the 
imaginations of men were so far excited by the 
great changes which were taking place on every 
side, that it seemed impossible to suggest a scheme 
so wild or so improbable that it should be with- 
out plausibilit}' in some minds. Speculators were 
eagerly making entry of all the government land 
for which they could raise money ; and in illustra- 
tion of the spirit in which this was done, an in- 
stance is given in which two brothers made pur- 
chase together in a single day of upwards of two 
hundred and forty quarter sections of land, with- 
out even taking the precaution to have them first 
visited and examined. But sales by individuals 
were quite as active as sales by government ; the 
great majority being made upon small payments 
down and the purchasers expecting to make for- 
tunes from the rapid rise in prices. Thus every- 



256 MICHIGAN. 

body seemed to be growing rich ; and though much 
of the appearance was fictitious, even the coolest 
heads could see that the apparent prosperity had 
some foundation, and that in the rapid settlement 
of the State there was reason for a steady and 
considerable increase in values. 

The currency of the country naturally and nec- 
essarily demanded early attention. At this time 
it consisted almost exclusively in issues of state 
banks. President Jackson's famous specie circular 
had made it necessary that payments for govern- 
ment lands should be made in gold and silver, but 
what was made use of for this purpose did not 
readily find its way into the channels of trade, 
and if it had done so, the amount of coin in the 
country would have been found wholly inade- 
quate to the demands of business. Nearly all 
financial transactions were therefore necessarily 
carried on with bank paper, and the most of this 
had its origin outside the State. A hasty glance 
at the condition of the currency in territorial 
times seems a necessary introduction to any ac- 
count of early state legislation. 

The people of Michigan had had an experience 
in currency as extensive and diversified perhaps 
as that of any other people in the world. Much 
of the earliest trade was with wampum ; and when 
this proved insufficient for the wants of the trade, 
furs and peltry became a substitute, — the beaver 
and other skins commonly dealt in having each a 



CONDITION OF THE CURRENCY. 257 

recognized value in the market, by which flour 
and other provisions, liquors, etc., were bought and 
sold. But these primitive devices were found 
quite insufficient to meet the demands of trade 
during the period of the American Revolution, 
and merchants made their due-bills which were 
received as change in business transactions, under 
an expectation that they would pass from hand to 
hand as currency. In 1779 an appearance of 
legality was given to this practice by the gov- 
ernor, who permitted the merchants to issue bills 
expressly designed for currency ; the quantity is- 
sued being limited to the estimated value of their 
stocks on hand. The merchants all received each 
other's bills, and had a set time in which to make 
their exchanges ; and though losses sometimes oc- 
curred from bankruptcy, the percentage was not 
great, and the system answered for the time a 
very good purpose. All the while there was some 
coin in circulation ; and this consisted largely in 
Spanish dollars, which for convenience in change 
were cut into halves, quarters, and eighths. The 
subdivision invited cheating, which became after 
a time so general and so serious that in 1798 the 
grand jury presented the cut money as a nuisance, 
and it was driven out of circulation. 

The attempt made in 1806 to establish a bank 
at Detroit has already been referred to. The men 
concerned in this scheme and who were to supply 
the capital had ample means, and there is no 

17 



258 MICHIGAN. 

reason for the belief that anything fraudulent, or 
which seemed to them impropei*, was contem- 
plated. But the local needs required no such 
bank ; and if it acquired a circulation at all com- 
mensurate to its capital, it must find it in distant 
parts of the country. Congress disapproved of the 
charter, and the bank was forced to discontinue 
business, which it did without, so far as we know, 
any considerable loss to creditors. A few of the 
bills failed to be returned for speedy redemption, 
and Judge Woodward, the first president, was an- 
noyed some years afterwards by threats of suits 
upon them. He was more annoyed by bitter and 
unscrupulous newspaper attacks upon him for his 
connection with the scheme, which, though pub- 
lished at Pittsburgh, circulated freely among his 
enemies in Detroit. 

The presence of the army in Detroit caused a 
considerable expenditui-e of government money, 
which ceased with the capture by the British. 
Colonel Proctor, the British civil governor, then 
undertook to supply to some extent the want of 
local currency by issuing a pi'oclamation making 
army and commissariat bills legal tender, under 
penalty of two hundred dollars for refusal to re- 
ceive them as such ; but this was in the nature of 
a forced military loan, and the bills disappeared 
when the British occupation ceased. After the 
war much money was brought in from other states 
to meet government expenditures, but there was 



CIRCULATION OF OHIO CURRENCY. 259 

no specie in circulation, and merchants and other 
individuals and corporations issued small due-bills 
for change ; and these were of all denominations 
from five dollars down to one cent. Even churches 
contributed to the wants of trade by this " shin- 
plaster " currency, which was easily counterfeited, 
as Father Richard found to his cost when his bills 
issued for St. Anne's began to come in for re- 
demption. 

In 1817 it seemed to the business men of Detroit 
that the time had come for a local bank, and in 
December of that year a charter was obtained, 
and the bank put in operation the next season. 
But the principal circulation in the territory was 
now Ohio bank bills; and of the banks which 
issued them little was or could be known. Some 
were supposed to be good and some doubtful, and 
in 1819 the merchants of Detroit appointed a 
committee, which may be styled a vigilance com- 
mittee, to give warning of danger in respect to 
this currency as occasion should arise. But Ohio 
currency continued to be more abundant than any 
other for many years, and serious complaints were 
made that the disbursing officers of the general gov- 
ernment made their payments in it. The wrong 
in this was very considerable ; for though the bills 
were nominally received at par, they were really 
at a discount of from twenty to twenty-five per 
cent. Merchants could not make use of them in 
New York or Boston where their purchases were 



260 MICHIGAN. 

principally made, and a large sacrifice upon them 
was inevitable. As the banks had a great tempta- 
tion to hold out inducements to the circulation of 
their bills at a distance from the point of redemp- 
tion, their payment by officers on public demands 
was always open to a suspicion of official cor- 
ruption, and the suspicion generally found voice 
among those who felt that they were wronged by 
being forced to take the paper. But for this there 
seemed to be no remedy : the general fact was 
that the people took in their ordinary business 
transactions whatever they found in circulation as 
money, and if they distrusted it for any reason, they 
were only the more prompt in passing it off. By 
the year 1822 small coins had again found their 
way into circulation to an extent that left no 
excuse for the fractional currency issued by indi- 
viduals, and in a public meeting it was resolved 
no longer to receive it. New York, New England, 
and Kentucky bank-bills were now to some extent 
circulating in the territory, but the need of local 
banking facilities was becoming urgent, and five 
years later two banks were chartered, only one 
of which, however, was organized. In 1829 two 
more were chartered and went into operation, in 
1832 another, and in 1835 five. Of these last 
one was located west of Lake Michigan, and two 
were railroad corporations with liberty to organize 
for banking purposes also. Eight banks were in 
existence when the state government was organ- 



GENERAL BANKING LAW. 261 

ized, and seven more were established witliin its 
limits under state charters before the State was 
formally admitted to the Union. For the most 
part they were in good hands and managed hon- 
estly, but the charters were almost entirely want- 
ing in provisions for the protection of bill-holders 
or other creditors. A " safety fund " was pro- 
vided for by general law, through the payment 
annually to the state treasurer of one half of one 
per cent, upon the capital stock paid in, and it 
was to be applied to the payment of the debts 
of any bank that should become insolvent. A 
bank commissioner was also provided for, with 
full powers of examination of books, papers, and 
securities, and with authority to take steps to 
enjoin any bank which was proceeding illegally or 
improperly. 

It would seem that fifteen banks, which was an 
average of one for less than ten thousand people 
in the State, ought to have been ample for the 
transaction of its business ; but at the very next 
session of the legislature the number of new char- 
ters applied for was so great that it was de- 
termined by general law to provide the means 
whereby any association of persons who could fur- 
nish the necessary means, and give proper securi- 
ties for the protection of the public, might by 
voluntary action assume banking powers. The 
cry of monopoly was already in the air ; and this 
general provision for converting everybody at 



262 MICHIGAN. 

pleasure into a banker was adopted " upon the 
plausible principle of introducing a free competi- 
tion into what was considered a profitable branch 
of business heretofore monopolized by a few fa- 
vored corporations." The common belief was, 
that in banking, as in other kinds of business, de- 
mand would regulate supply, and that banks would 
come into existence only when and where there 
was need for them, and where capital was available 
for the purpose. Then if it was found on trial 
that a bank was not needed, it would simply wind 
up its affairs and go out of existence, as a mer- 
chant might close out his business and engage in 
something else ; and the experiment, if the public 
was sufficiently protected by the law of organiza- 
tion, would harm no one. Let the law be care- 
fully framed, it was said, and under proper super- 
vision everything might be left to the ordinary 
operations of trade and business. With senti- 
ments like these prevailing, a general law was 
passed March 15, 1837, under which any ten or 
more freeholders of any county might organize 
themselves into a corporation for the transaction 
of banking business, with a capital of not less 
than fifty nor more than three hundred thousand 
dollars, on furnishing the required securities. 

The provisions made by the law for the protec- 
tion of the public were : that no bank should com- 
mence operations until thirty per cent, of the 
stock should be actually paid in, in specie ; that 



FINANCIAL DISASTER. 263 

securities in bonds and mortgages on real estate, 
or in bonds executed by resident freeholders and 
approved by the county treasurer and clerk, should 
be given for the payment of all debts and the re- 
demption of all bills ; that the banks should be 
subject to the safety fund act, and that a failure 
to pay the bills and notes on demand, or within 
thirty days thereafter, in lawful currency, should 
operate as a dissolution. And when, added to 
these, the banks were made subject to the con- 
stant supervision of the bank commissioner, it 
seemed to the public of that day that a banking 
system of exceptional security had been estab- 
lished. 

The legislature which passed this act adjourned 
March 22, 1837, to November 9th following, but 
long before that day events had happened which 
rendered a special session imperative. The wild 
speculations of the country had been rapidly ap- 
proaching a climax. Money, during the preceding 
winter, had commanded exorbitant rates of inter- 
est, ranging from two to four per cent, a month to 
persons in good financial standing and in regular 
business, and it was impossible that this state of 
things should long continue. In the spring busi- 
ness houses in the leading cities of the country be- 
gan to fail. So many suspended that a panic was 
started, and at the beginning of May there was a 
run upon the banks of New York. A great meet- 
ing in that city besought the president to rescind 



^64 Ml en WAN. 

the specie circular, as a necessary relief to the 
business pressure, and the " Washington Globe " 
responded that " there is no pressure which an 
honest man should regret." But the pressure was 
greater than the banks could sustain, and in a few 
days the banks of New York, Philadelphia, Bos- 
ton, and Baltimore suspended specie payments 
and the suspension became general throughout the 
country. The banks paid out each other's bills, 
and the people, unable to get other currency, were 
compelled to take and use them, but every one of 
the banks was, in a legal sense, in a condition of 
practical insolvency. Legislatures were called to- 
gether to devise a remedy for the consequent evils, 
and, under a belief that the banks had assets suffi- 
cient to meet all demands upon them when the 
present stringency should be over, the temporary 
suspension of specie payments was legalized. 

The Michigan legislature was convened in 
special session June 12th. Up to this time no 
banks had been actually organized under the gen- 
eral banking law, though preliminary steps had 
been taken in several cases. Governor Mason in 
his message, after depicting in vivid language the 
financial and commercial embarrassments of the 
country, proceeded to point out as their causes over- 
banking, over-trading, and extravagance among 
the people. He spoke particularly and strongly 
of excessive bank issues, which he declared to be 
a violation of the simplest principles of poKtical 



POSITION OF THE GOVERNOR. 265 

economy. The evil effects were depicted in detail 
and in strong colors, and his views were empha- 
sized by a review of the present condition of the 
country and with some prophecy of the immediate 
future. 

How far the governor, in what he was saying, 
was expressing settled convictions in his own 
mind, and how far he was merely repeating the 
current talk in the political circles to which he in- 
clined, it would be difficult now to determine. If 
he believed all he said of the evils of excessive 
bank issues, and if he saw a financial crisis ap- 
proaching, as his message would indicate that he 
did, it would naturally be expected of him that 
he would recommend such legislation as would re- 
move the causes which were still active in the 
multiplication of the evils he pointed out : espe- 
cially might it be expected of him that he would 
recommend the repeal of the general banking 
law, so far, at least, as it authorized corporations 
for which proceedings had not already been origi- 
nated. But the truth probably is, that he com- 
prehended very imperfectly the actual crisis. In 
this regard he was no more lacking in foresight 
than the community in general. Everything about 
him was still excited and speculative ; values were 
nominally maintained ; dealings in wild lands and 
town property at fancy prices were still active 
though mostly on credit, and the notion floated 
vaguely in people's minds that there was wealth 



266 MICHIGAN. 

in land as such, independent of labor and improve- 
ment. But as the State was still rapidly settling, 
any one could see that land must continue to be 
bought and sold, and as private and public im- 
provements spread over the State, the hope that 
the market value would continue to go up did not 
seem wholly chimerical. The same legislature 
which had passed the general banking law had 
authorized the governor to borrow five millions of 
dollars for railroads, canals, and other improve- 
ments, and it was plausibly argued that when 
these improved highways had been made to pen- 
etrate every part of the State, as was proposed, 
farming lands would approximate in value to those 
in western New York, and prosperous villages 
would rise up all along the lines of internal com- 
munication. The governor, therefore, so far from 
recommending the repeal of the general banking 
law, expressed his strong opinion that the banks 
of the State were generally in a sound condition, 
and that what was to be feared was, that as a 
consequence of specie suspension, elsewhere, runs 
would be made upon Michigan banks which, not- 
withstanding they had ample assets, would force 
them to suspend operations. He, therefore, rec- 
ommended the passage of a law legalizing the tem- 
porary suspension of specie payments, and the 
legislature, adopting his suggestion, authorized 
the suspension until May 16, 1838 ; the banks in 
the mean time being prohibited from paying divi- 



OPERATION OF LEGISLATIVE ACTS. 267 

dends while in a state of suspension, and also from 
selling gold or silver at a premium and from buy- 
ing their own notes at a discount. An amend- 
ment to the bill, taking from the banks the privi- 
lege of collecting their own demands in specie 
while not paying specie themselves, was defeated. 
This was the most important outcome of the 
special session, and it was certainly very extraor- 
dinary legislation. It left the general banking 
law in force, with full authority to organize banks 
under it, and to begin the business of issuing bills 
in a state of suspension; to flood the State with an 
irredeemable currency, subject only to the condi- 
tion that the associates should give security for 
the ultimate redemption of their bills and the pay- 
ment of their other debts, and that they should 
pay in thirty per cent, of their capital stock in spe- 
cie before commencing business. Wild lands that 
had been recently bought of the government at 
one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre were now 
valued at ten or twenty times that amount, and 
lots in villages that still existed only on paper 
had a worth for banking purposes only limited by 
the conscience of the officer who was to take the 
securities. Any ten freeholders of a county must 
be poor indeed if t\\ej could not give sufficient 
security to answer the purpose of the general 
banking law. The requirement of the payment 
of thirty per cent, of the capital stock in specie 
was more difficult to be complied with. But as 



268 MICBIGAN, 

the payment was to be made to the bank itself, 
the difficulty was gotten over in various ingenious 
ways, which the author of the general banking 
law could scarcely have anticipated. In some cases, 
stock notes in terms payable in specie, or the cer- 
tificates of individuals which stated — untruly — 
that the maker held a specified sum of specie for 
the bank, were counted as specie itself ; in others, 
a small sum of specie was paid in and taken out, 
and the process repeated over and over until the 
aggregate of payments equaled the sum required ; 
in still others, the specie with which one bank was 
organized was passed from town to town and made 
to answer the purposes of several. By the first 
day of January, 1838, articles of association for 
twenty-one banks had been filed, making, with the 
banks before in existence, an average of one to 
less than five thousand people. Some of them 
were absolutely without capital, and some were 
organized by scheming men in New York and else- 
where, who took the bills away with them to cir- 
culate abroad, putting out none at home. For 
some, locations as inaccessible as possible were 
selected, that the bills might not come back to 
plague the managers. The bank commissioners 
say in their report for 1838, of their journey for 
inspection : " The singular spectacle was presented 
of the officers of the State seeking for banks in 
situations the most inaccessible and remote from 
trade, and finding at every step an increase of la- 



THE GOVERNOR'S POLICY. 269 

bor by the discovery of new and unknown organi- 
zations. Before they could be arrested the mis- 
chief was done : large issues were in circulation 
and no adequate remedy for the evil." One bank 
was found housed in a saw-mill, and it was said 
with pardonable exaggeration in one of the public 
papers, " Every village plat with a house, or even 
without a house, if it had a hollow stump to serve 
as a vault, was the site of a bank." The suspen- 
sion act, which under these circumstances gave 
free license to scheming parties for frauds which 
the general banking law sufficiently invited, was 
very justly characterized as " a high crime against 
society." 

The governor, when he delivered his annual 
message in January, 1838, still had confidence in 
the general banking law, which he said " offered 
to all persons the privilege of banking under cer- 
tain guards and restrictions," and he declared that 
" the principles upon which this law is based are 
certainly correct, destroying as they do the odious 
feature of a banking monopoly, and giving equal 
rights to all classes of the community." But he 
thought there had been abuses of the system for 
which the legislature should provide remedy, and 
he reiterated his opinion of the evils of excessive 
paper issues. He recommended a law for the with- 
drawal of small bills, that gold and silver might 
take their place as currency, and he expressed 
the opinion that it would be wise to create a 



270 MICHIGAN. 

state bank with a capital limited to the amount of 
the state loan he had been authorized to make. 
A most extravagant recommendation, which if 
adopted might have involved the State itself in 
the bankruptcy which was then impending over 
so many of the people. 

The aggregate amount of private indebtedness 
had by this time become enormous, and the pres- 
sure for payment was serious and disquieting. 
Property on the market was as abundant as ever, 
but sellers were numerous and eager, while buyers 
were few, and conversion into money was almost 
impossible. Wheat, which was worth two dollars 
and a half a bushel in 1836, had now gone down 
to a dollar, and other agricultural products in like 
proportion, and the depression affected all other 
prices. The people must have relief; and what 
relief could be so certain or so speedy as more 
banks and more money? More banks therefore 
continued to be organized, and the paper current 
flowed out among the people in increasing vol- 
ume. The legislature, in December, had under- 
taken to improve the banking system somewhat, 
and had provided for the appointment of three 
bank commissioners who should inspect every 
bank at least once in three months, and had also 
prohibited the suspension of specie payments by 
any bank which might be organized after the first 
of January following. But the prohibition was 
of no moment. Twenty-eight banks were organ- 



EVASION OF THE LAW. 271 

ized after that date, and succeeded in getting their 
issues afloat, which was all that in many cases the 
promoters expected or cared for. The banks cre- 
ated under the general banking law were appro- 
priately christened by the public " wild cats," and 
it was easy for any one to obtain their bills who 
could give reasonable assurance that he would cir- 
culate them at a distance and keep them afloat. 

The bank commissioners when they entered 
upon the duty of inspection encounteied, as was 
to be expected, a combination, organized and vig- 
ilant, to deceive and mislead them. The specie 
found by them at one bank was sent by hurried 
journey ahead of them to be counted at the next ; 
" gold and silver flew about the country with the 
celerity of magic ; its sound was heard in the 
depths of the forest, yet like the wind one knew 
not whence it came or whither it was going." It 
was found in some cases that large packages of 
bills sent to a distance for circulation were not 
entered on the books or reported ; that the books 
were intentionally prepared for deception ; that 
kegs of specie kept for show and credit were kegs 
of nails with a little silver on the top ; and that 
every conceivable device had been resorted to, in 
order to make that appear sound and worthy of 
trust which was rottenness and fraud in its very 
birth. But distrust had come to be universal. 
Whoever took the bills of the banks did so in- 
tending to pass them off at the earliest possible 



272 MICHIGAN. 

moment. They were at a great discount as com- 
pared with Eastern bills ; the issues of one bank 
were at a discount as compared with those of an- 
other ; merchants kept couriers by whom they 
hurried off to the banks of issue the bills they 
were compelled to take, that they might if possi- 
ble exchange them for something in which they 
had more confidence. No "circulating medium" 
ever before circulated so rapidly. The commis- 
sioners were vigilant in taking steps to wind up 
the concerns of banks which had been demon- 
strated to have no soundness, but new banks still 
continued to be formed. When a bank failed it 
was of course that laboring men and farmers should 
be the principal losers ; for they had neither the 
means of keeping well informed concerning the 
condition of the banks, nor the facilities for put- 
ting off doubtful bills which were possessed by the 
merchants. At the beginning of 1839 the bank 
commissioners estimated that there were a million 
dollars of bills of insolvent banks in the hands of 
individuals and unavailable. Yet the governor, in 
his annual message delivered in January, found it 
a " source of unfeigned gratification to be able to 
congratulate [the legislature] on the prosperous 
condition to which our rising commonwealth has 
attained," though he thought there should be a 
correction of abuses in the banking system, but 
of what nature were the abuses, and how to be 
remedied he failed to be specific in pointing out. 



DEPRECIATION OF CURRENCY. 273 

He was careful to say, however, that there ought 
to be no war upon the banks, for " the banks have 
their rights and should be protected in them," but 
he added at the same time, as if to warn them 
against any possible inclination to misbehavior, 
that " they are not above all law, both human and 
divine." 

How far the actual fact corresponded to this 
last remark, there might possibly be differences 
of opinion. It was very certain that in the man- 
agement of the affairs of many of the banks no 
moral obligations whatever had been recognized ; 
and it was equally certain that from first to last 
their operations had contemplated the circum- 
vention and defeat of all such laws of the state as 
had protection of the public in view. And the 
general fact was that the mischief was done be- 
fore any legal remedy could be applied. The 
hopeful governor reiterated his opinion in favor 
of a great state bank, but he had acquired no con- 
verts to his plan, and it received little attention. 
The insolvent banks were rapidly passing out of 
existence ; by the end of 1839 forty-two of them 
were in the hands of receivers, and only two of 
the chartered banks and four of those which were 
organized under the general banking law were 
still keeping open doors for business. A very 
large share of all the currency of the State had 
become absolutely worthless in the pockets of the 
people, and was as much lost to the owners as 

18 



274 MICHIGAN. 

tliousrh it had been committed to the flames. Mar- 
ket values of merchantable property had depreci- 
ated in proportion to the reduction of currency ; 
there was no sale for lands and little for anything 
else except the bare necessaries of life ; distrust in 
business circles was universal, and business was 
utterly prostrate. Distress had taken the place of 
the unnatural excitement, extravagance-, and ela- 
tion of fictitious wealth. It was a natural se- 
quence to this condition of things that a revo- 
lution should take place in the political control 
of the State, and that the Jackson party, whicb 
had held undisputed sway to this time, should 
be deprived of power. The Whigs in the fall 
of 1839 chose a majority of the legislature, and 
elected William Woodbridge governor. The revo- 
lution was the result of general causes, operating 
throughout the country, though every state had 
an experience of its own, with peculiar features. 

But no political change could stop the vicious 
consequences of the wild-cat banking, which were 
attributable to no one party, and which were con- 
tinued by suspension laws through several years. 
All the important legislation of the State for some 
time, and especially all that concerned public im- 
provements and the collection of debts, was shaped 
in view of the depression which followed the finan- 
cial dissipation. But the measures of relief only 
aggravated and prolonged the evils of a worthless 
currency ; " a compound," as a writer of the day 



OUTCOME OF FREE BANKING. 275 

justly said, " of folly and wickedness." " Of course 
the people were swindled out of a million or two 
of property, — and this was a lesser evil than the 
frightful inroads made upon their moral princi- 
ples, for a doubtful currency contaminates all 
hands that touch it." Then came stay laws, and 
laws to compel creditors to take lands at a valua- 
tion. They were doubtful in point of utility, and 
more than doubtful in point of morality and con- 
stitutionality. The federal bankrupt act of 1841 
first brought substantial relief: it brought almost 
no dividends to creditors, but it relieved debtors 
from their crushing burdens and permitted them, 
sobered and in their right minds, to enter once 
more the fields of industry and activity. 

The extraordinary history of the attempt to 
break up an " odious monopoly " in banking by 
making everybody a banker, and to create pros- 
perity by unlimited issues of paper currency, was 
brought at length to a fit conclusion. There had 
always been in the minds of sound lawyers serious 
doubts of the constitutionality of the general bank- 
ing law ; and in 1844 the matter was brought to 
judicial test. The constitution declared that " the 
legislature shall pass no act of incorporation unless 
with the assent of at least two thirds of each 
house ; " and this provision it was believed con- 
templated that each proposed corporation should 
be considered and determined upon separately. 
It was not in the minds of the people that a great 



276 MICHIGAN. 

number of corporations should be created or pro- 
vided for by a single act, by a legislature which, 
if considering the necessity or expediency of any 
single one of them, might disapprove of it alto- 
gether. The provision was restrictive, having its 
origin in a distrust of corporations which was 
prevalent among the people, and was meant to 
impose an important and effective restraint upon 
their easy and free multiplication. This was the 
view taken by the court, and the law was held 
void in its inception. The banks were conse- 
quently illegal institutions ; the securities given 
for the payment of their debts were void ; the 
obligations they had taken from individuals were 
nullities. Even the receiverships which had been 
created for winding up their concerns were of no 
legal importance further ; for the banks having 
never had existence could have no creditors to ac- 
count to, and such receivers as were in possession 
of assets which they could make available, pock- 
eted them. But in many cases there were no 
assets to pocket. Such were the fruits of the ex- 
periment of giving equal and practically unlim- 
ited rights in banking to everybody who wanted a 
shorter road to wealth than that trodden by labor 
and honest industry. 

The new State, under the bold but inexperienced 
guidance of its youthful governor, disdaining the 
lessons of history, had determined to try for itself 
the experiment of manufacturing riches by the 



SUBSIDENCE OF THE BANKING MANIA. Ill 

printing-press. The condition after the experi- 
ment might be compared to a forest after a cy- 
clone : everything was prostrate, and everything 
was in confusion. The State was now paying the 
cost of its lesson in the destruction of credit, the 
loss of all the fictitious and much of the actual 
wealth of the people, the bankruptcy of great 
numbers, and several years of stagnation of busi- 
ness. General and forced economy was a neces- 
sity of the situation; but this was a blessing. 
After 1841, the few chartered banks which sur- 
vived were able to maintain their position as spe- 
cie paying, and by their legitimate assistance the 
people patiently and with steady industry ad- 
dressed themselves to the development of the re- 
sources of the State and to the improvement of 
their own condition. Thousands never recovered 
from the bankruptcy and discouragement which 
followed the financial collapse ; but the State at 
large was soon rapidly accumulating substantial 
wealth, and acquiring an independent and self- 
respecting population. 

Thereafter wild-cat banking was a by-word in 
the State ; but the lessons it taught needed to be 
learned at some time, and were not likely to be 
learned except with experience as teacher. One 
of its lessons was that neither real estate nor any- 
thing else not immediately convertible into money 
can support the credit of bank currency. But for 
the experience of the several States in banking, 



278 MICHIGAN. 

in the years 1837-39, who shall say that the na- 
tional currency act, when it came to be passed, 
might not have been as little guarded against 
dangerous schemes as some of its state predeces- 
sors? 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE STATE ENTEES UPON INTERNAL IMPEOVE- 
MENTS. 

The years 1835, '36, and '37 were years for the 
building of air castles everywhere, but especially 
in the new West. Nowhere were the imagina- 
tions of the people more active, or more excited 
with visions of gi-eat prosperity than in Michigan, 
and nowhere was there greater excuse for it. 
Every steamboat on Lake Erie was loaded with 
people on their way to the Peninsular State, and 
the road through the Black Swamp from Cleve- 
land to the Maumee exhibited a continuous mov- 
ing caravan of emigrant wagons slowly and labo- 
riously dragged along. The Erie and Kalamazoo 
railroad, with its little cars of stage-coach fashion, 
was doing what it could to help the procession 
move on into Michigan : it carried " baggage at 
the risk of the owners," but its speed was not 
such as to put life at much risk, except perhaps 
when a broken strap rail ran a " snake head " up 
through the car floor. In the interior might be 
heard on every side the sound of the woodman's 
axe and the crash of falling trees ; new houses. 



280 MICHIGAN. 

very primitive but each sheltering a family, were 
being put up everywhere ; and crops were being 
gathered where only the year before all was wil- 
derness and solitude. A magical transformation 
was going on before the eyes of the people, which 
had been rendered possible through the construc- 
tion of the Erie Canal, whereby De Witt Clinton, 
Myron Holley, and their associates had added so 
vastly to the wealth and importance of the Empire 
State, and won for themselves immortal renown. 
It was a striking evidence of what improved means 
for the transportation of persons and property 
might do for a state ; and the proof that the peo- 
ple were awake to its importance is seen in the 
fact that in forming their constitution, prepara- 
tory to admission to the Union, they took pains to 
impose upon the legislature the duty of following 
the example of New York. The provision to this 
end was the following : " Internal improvements 
shall be encouraged by the government of this 
state ; and it shall be the duty of the legislature 
as soon as may be, to make provision by law for 
ascertaining the proper objects of improvements, 
in relation to roads, canals, and navigable waters ; 
and it shall also be their duty to provide by law 
for an equal, systematic, and economical applica- 
tion of the funds which may be appropriated to 
these objects." As this section neither gave power 
to the legislature nor undertook to set bounds to 
power otherwise possessed, it was obviously out of 



THE TEMPTATION TO BUILD RAILROADS. 281 

place in the constitution, where only the outlines 
and fundamental principles of government are 
looked for ; but it was indicative of prevailing 
thoughts and aspirations, and had no little influ- 
ence upon subsequent state action. It may there- 
fore be regarded as a significant landmark in the 
history of the State. 

The laudable ambition of the first governor to 
distinguish his own administration and to advance 
the growth and prosperity of the State would 
naturally lead him to act promptly upon this man- 
datory provision. The surface of Michigan was 
such as to admit of easy and economical construc- 
tion of both railroads and canals, and it might well 
be deemed a reproach to the State should it be 
behind the rest of the Union in these great and 
now indispensable conveniences. Accordingly the 
governor in his annual message reminded the 
legislature that " the period has arrived when 
Michigan can no longer, without detriment to her 
standing and importance as a state, delay the ac- 
tion necessary for the development of her vast re- 
sources of wealth. Nature has bestowed upon us 
the highest advantages of climate, a fertile soil 
and peculiar facilities for commerce ; and with a 
prudent and wise forecast to be exercised by the 
legislature and the people, we cannot fail soon to 
reach that high destiny which awaits us." It is 
impossible to mistake the spirit of this message : 
the emphatic words are words of action : we can- 



282 MICHIGAN. 

not longer delay : we must soon — not by steady 
and measured steps, but immediately — " reach 
that high destiny which awaits us," if we have 
the " prudent and wise forecast " which perceives 
the opportunity for greatness, and embraces it 
without hesitation or faint-heartedness. 

Accordingly the governor recommended surveys 
to determine how and by what routes the waters 
of Lake Michigan might be connected by canals 
with the waters of the eastern part of the State ; 
and he suggests a series of state railroads, and the 
purchase by the State of certain roads which had 
already been begun by corporations. The legisla- 
ture responded promptly to this action. An act 
was passed for the location and construction of 
three lines of railroad across the State : one from 
Detroit to the mouth of the St. Joseph River ; one 
from Monroe to New Buffalo, and one from the 
mouth of the Black River to the navigable waters 
of Grand River or to Lake Michigan. The sum 
of five hundred and 'fifty thousand dollars was 
appropriated to begin the construction, and further 
sums were voted for the survey of a canal route 
from Mount Clemens to the mouth of the Kala- 
mazoo River, and of a canal around the falls of the 
St. Mary, and for various minor projects which 
may now be suffered to rest in the oblivion to 
which the State long since very properly consigned 
them. To provide funds for these purposes, the 
governor was authorized to borrow on the credit 



THE STATE PLUNGES INTO DEBT. 283 

of the State the sum of five million dollars, at an 
interest which should not exceed five and a half 
per cent., and to issue state bonds therefor. The 
sum borrowed was to constitute an internal im- 
provement fund, and it was declared that the pro- 
ceeds of all railroads and canals constructed by 
the State, the interest on all loans which might 
thereafter be made by the State from the in- 
ternal improvement fund; and the dividends aris- 
ing from all bank stock owned or which might 
thereafter be owned by the State, so far as neces- 
sary, should constitute a sinking fund for the pay- 
ment of the principal and interest of this loan. 
The bonds were not to be sold at less than par. 
The sum to be borrowed was subsequently in- 
creased by two hundred thousand dollars, that the 
State might advance to each of two railroad com- 
panies then engaged in building roads the sum of 
one hundred thousand dollars. 

Five million two hundred thousand dollars was 
a large debt for a state whose people, less than 
two hundred thousand in number, were still strug- 
gling under the hardships and privations of pio- 
neer life ; and a little more experience in the man- 
ner in which public moneys are expended in state 
works would have satisfied any considerate person 
that this amount would be only the beginning of 
what would be required to complete the magnifi- 
cent system of public works which the legislature 
had planned. This, however, was not generally 



284 MICHIGAN. 

understood at the time : the calculations of cost 
were low ; it was only the calculation of returns 
that was magnificently large. The committee of 
the legislature that reported the scheme had no 
difficulty in demonstrating, by facts and figures, 
that the income from the railroad from Detroit 
across the State must be thirty per cent, annu- 
ally upon the cost ; a most splendid and satisfac- 
tory result, as all must admit, to flow from acting 
promptly with proper confidence in the future of 
the State. The cost of the road, it is true, with 
all its station houses and other buildings, was esti- 
mated at only a million and a half ; but this was 
for a single track only, and the surplus earnings, 
after providing for the interest of the cost and 
paying off the principal, were expected to be am- 
ple for the building of an additional track as fast 
as needed. Such were the crude and ignorant 
calculations upon which, in the early days of rail- 
roads, states were induced to plunge into debt and 
to peril their credit and good name, sometimes al- 
most beyond hope of protection or rescue. 

In his annual message for 1838, the governor 
was able to say that under the act authorizing the 
five million loan he had made such arrangements 
as would enable the State readily to command 
any portion of the amount, and that five hundred 
thousand dollars of the bonds had already been 
sold in the American market at the very hand- 
some premium of six per cent., and the remainder 



PRUDENCE CREEPING BACK. 285 

had been put upon the European market. He 
also reported that the improvements which had 
been entered upon were progressing to his satis- 
faction. But there were indications that the gov- 
ernor was becoming circumspect, and perhaps be- 
ginning to fear that the State had entered upon 
undertakings which were likely to test its powers 
unduly. He questioned whether the sum the State 
had undertaken to borrow would be sufficient, 
even with the most rigid economy, to provide for 
the construction of the works undertaken, and he 
submitted the propriety of leaving the minor 
works to individual enterprise ; the State con- 
structing the great and leading communications 
only. The minor enterprises, however, as well as 
the greater, were already entered upon, and as 
nobody was proposing their construction as indi- 
vidual enterprises, it was not at all likely that 
state expenditures upon them would be suffered 
to stop while the larger works were progressing. 
When a great system of internal improvements is 
entered upon, sections and. localities have claims 
they will not suffer to be ignored ; the questions 
involved are largely questions of local advantage, 
and the state, in the distribution of its favors, 
must consider all, and be impartial to all. 

In his message for 1839 the governor still speaks 
in hopeful terms of the progress of public improve- 
ments, but the information he has to communicate 
respecting the loan is not agreeable. The sale of 



286 MICHIGAN. 

bonds to the amount of five hundred thousand dol- 
lars had fallen through after two hundred thousand 
had been paid for, and he was obliged to look 
elsewhere for a purchaser. He had found one in 
the Morris Canal and Banking Company, for a 
part of the sum required, and that company as 
agent for the State had closed out a sale of the 
remaining bonds to the Pennsylvania United States 
Bank. The terms were not what the State had 
expected to make : the sale was in fact below par, 
but was made nominally at par by an allowance 
under the name of commissions. One million 
three hundred thousand dollars had actually been 
received into the state treasury, and the governor, 
while not satisfied with what had been accom- 
plished, assured the legislature it "was the best 
that was possible in the existing state of the 
money market. This was a great disappointment 
to the State, and subjected the governor to serious 
criticism. But worse news was to come : it was 
soon to be a question not of the loss of a percent- 
age merely, but of the loss of the major part of 
the loan. The Morris Canal and Banking Com- 
pany failed ; the Pennsylvania United States Bank 
failed ; the two had possession of all the state 
bonds and had paid for some of them ; upon the 
remainder only a small percentage had been paid, 
but the bankrupt institutions, without right or 
authority, had hypothecated the bonds for their 
own debts. Only about one half the face value 
had been received by the State. 



THE STATE BROUGHT TO A HALT. 287 

This was a startling condition of things. The 
State not only had urgent need of the whole 
amount of the loan for the works already begun, 
but it had now become manifest to the most san- 
guine that a much larger sum would be necessary 
for their completion. Nothing, it was now seen, 
was to be realized from earnings which could be 
applied to construction. If the loan failed even 
in part, progress upon the works must be stopped, 
or at least greatly delayed. But it now appeared 
that while the State was to receive scarcely half 
the expected loan, the whole amount of the bonds 
was in the hands of parties who would insist that 
they were purchasers for value, and demand full 
payment. The State must then pay, or it must 
expect to be classed in the money market of the 
world in the ranks of repudiation. Repudiation 
is the lowest depth of state degradation ; it had 
already brought some states into disgrace ; and a 
people might justly be sensitive to its imputation, 
even when their purpose was right and honorable. 

To narrate in detail all that took place after- 
wards would make a long and dreary story which 
may well be left untold. The results are all that 
are now important. The bank crash came with 
its attendant ruin and bankruptcy, and the State 
was soon in condition rendering it impossible to 
pay the interest on even the full-paid bonds. 
Work on the state railroads was likely to come to 
a stop, and it was only kept in progress by means 



288 MICHIGAN. 

of an issue of state script payable in lands, of 
which half a million acres had been donated by 
the United States to the State for internal im- 
provement purposes. The sacrifice upon this script 
was necessarily very great, and its use was a 
wasteful expenditure of state resources. The ordi- 
nary expenses of government could not be met 
without borrowing, for it would have been impos- 
sible to raise by taxation sufficient to meet all 
demands without causing great distress. As the 
amount payable on state bonds was now in con- 
troversy, the interest was necessarily in dispute, 
and no part of it was provided for, or was likel}'- 
to be until the controversy was in some manner 
determined. To add to public embarrassments, it 
was now made known that the details of the nego- 
tiation for the loan had not at first been fully 
communicated, and that some of the terms were 
so unusual and so detrimental to the interests of 
the State as justly to call for censure. 

Regarding the bonds which had been intrusted 
to the Morris Canal and Banking Company, and 
which were now in other hands, the State took at 
the outset a position which was deemed just, and 
maintained it firmly. The bonds which had been 
bought and paid for should be paid in full, prin- 
cipal and interest. There should be no repudia- 
tion ; and if payment of interest was delayed, 
interest should be paid upon the deferred pay- 
ment. But as to bonds not sold in fact, but upon 



THE CREDIT OF THE STATE MAINTAINED. 289 

which something had been paid, the State would 
recognize an obligation to the extent of the pay- 
ment, but no farther. It was not believed the 
holders of those bonds were entitled to claim 
the rights of bond fide holders : they stood in the 
shoes of the Morris Canal and Banking Company, 
and of the Pennsylvania United States Bank, 
neither of which could have equities against the 
State entitling it to demand upon the bonds more 
than it had paid for them with interest ; and the 
State, even at the risk of misconstruction, would 
refuse to go, in recognizing the bonds, farther than 
equity and the rules of law as between individuals 
would require. On the part-paid bonds being 
surrendered, the State would issue full-paid bonds 
for the sum equitably due upon them. More 
than this it was not believed that justice could 
demand. The proposition of the State was not 
immediately accepted by the bond-holders, but it 
was not long before the part-paid bonds began to 
come in, and in the end all were retired. The 
episode was a disagreeable one for the State, but 
when it was over the state credit was good, and 
the debt was not beyond its ability to pay in due 
season. 

The works of internal improvement still re- 
mained on the hands of the State, and in the day 
of its poverty and trial they were continually 
calling upon a depleted treasury for money to 
keep them in progress. But now that the great 

19 



290 MICHIGAN. 

bubble of speculation and inflation was burst, it 
became plain to the comprehension of the dullest 
that some of the state projects were wild and 
chimerical, and they were abandoned altogether. 
Such was the case with the projected canal from 
Mount Clemens to the mouth of the Kalamazoo 
River, which it was now seen would be worthless 
if constructed. The only works of much prom- 
ise were the central and southern of the three 
railroads, which were now very well under way. 
But doubts were arising in the minds of the peo- 
ple whether the State had been wise in undertak- 
ing the construction and management even of 
these : whether it was possible for the State to do 
either the one or the other with the same prudence 
and economy as could private owners. These 
doubts soon matured into a settled conviction that 
the management of railroads was in its nature es- 
sentially a private business, and ought to be in the 
hands of individuals. By common consent it came 
to be considered that the State in entering upon 
these works had made a serious mistake ; and the 
legislature, in an act for funding the loan bonds, 
invited proposals from state creditors for the pur- 
chase of the state railroads. The times were not 
then propitious ; but in 1846 the Central and 
Southern Railroads, so far as they were then con- 
structed, were sold by the State to corporations 
which had been chartered for the purpose of pur- 
chasing. The aggregate price was two million and 



THE STATE BINDS ITSELF TO PRUDENCE. 291 

ri, half, a sum very much below what had been 
their cost to the State. But the people felt that 
the roads were well off their hands, and as has 
been said by one familiar with the whole history, 
" Here virtually ceased to exist all our works of 
'internal improvement. Nothing but the debris 
of our airy castles remained, and that only to 
plague our recollections." The two great rail- 
roads when taken up by corporations went rapidly 
forward to completion, and they soon became great 
national highways whose utility to the State was 
quite equal to the highest expectations ever formed 
concerning them. 

Having all their bitter experience with internal 
improvements fresh in mind, when they formed a 
new constitution in 1850, the people resolved to 
put it out of the power of the legislature again to 
involve them in extravagant projects. And here 
we reach another landmark, significant in itself, 
but especially notable when contrasted with the 
provision respecting internal improvements which 
has already been quoted from the constitution of 
1835. In 1850 the people deemed it necessary to 
prohibit what in 1835 they commended; and they 
now provided that " the State shall not subscribe 
to or be interested in the stock of any company, 
association, or corporation," and also that " the 
State shall not be a party to or interested in any 
work of internal improvement, nor engaged in car- 
rying on any such work, except in the expenditure 



292 MICHIGAN. 

of grants to the State of land or other property." 
These were very positive provisions ; and by adopt- 
ing them the people believed they had rendered it 
impossible that projects of doubtful wisdom and 
utility should be engaged in at the public cost. 

But diseases in the body politic, like those in 
the human system, are likely to take on new forms 
from time to time, and they are not to be exor- 
cised by words, or kept off by constitutional inhi- 
bitions. The mania for internal improvements 
at the cost of the public, when it returned fifteen 
years later under the administration of Governor 
Crapo, took on the form of aid to railroad corpora- 
tions by the several municipal bodies in the State. 
Such aid was being given in other states, and 
railroads as a consequence were being constructed 
with a rapidity never paralleled. Michigan was 
lagging behind the rest of the country : Why 
should this be so? Every town which should sub- 
scribe to the stock of a railroad would immediately 
receive a full return in the enhanced value of its 
landed property, and would have the stock besides. 
This was what was commonly said and commonly 
believed; and the legislature, well reflecting the 
common desire, passed a general law under which 
townships and cities were to be permitted to vote 
aid to railroads. The railroads, under another 
general law, might be laid out anywhere by the 
projectors at pleasure ; so that monopoly in these 
public conveniences seemed to be effectually pro* 



RESTRICTIONS ON MUNICIPAL EXTRAVAGANCE. 293 

vided against. The governor vetoed the railroad 
aid act, but the legislature passed it over his veto. 
The business of voting aid to railroads was soon 
active ; and the most visionary scheme was found 
as likely to receive aid as any other : perhaps more 
so, for more work would be done for it. Nothing 
is so easy as to build railroads if it can be accom- 
plished by dropping votes into a box. Only fos- 
sils and croakers will disturb the public mind by 
reminders that the sums voted must at some time 
be paid, and that the roads when built may pay 
nothing towards them. The State in detail by its 
corporations was fast plunging into indebtedness 
which had already reached an aggregate of several 
million, when the process was arrested by a decis- 
ion of the state Supreme Court that the act under 
which the voting had taken place was unconstitu- 
tional. The decision was a bitter disappointment 
to many, and the public clamor for a time was 
loud and earnest ; but a movement to obtain an 
amendment to the constitution which would per- 
mit such municipal aid to railroads was unsuccess- 
ful, and the excitement soon died out. The people 
had taken the " sober second thought," and had 
become convinced that municipal corporations in 
their power to contract debts or to expend public 
moneys should be confined closely to proper muni- 
cipal purposes. And this conclusion may be taken 
as a third conspicuous landmark in the history of 
internal improvements in Michigan. 



CHAPTER XV. 

ECONOMY, KECUPEEATION, AND PROGEESS. 

The ascendency of the Whig party in the State 
came to an end in the great reaction which fol- 
lowed the death of President Harrison, and the 
quarrel of his successor with the party which had 
elected him. In 1841, John S. Barry, the Demo- 
cratic candidate for governor, was chosen, with a 
legislature of the same political faith to support 
him. The new governor was a man peculiarly 
adapted to the station in the present condition of 
state affairs. The State was just beginning to re- 
cuperate after its wild and disastrous financial 
extravagances, and an executive was needed avIio 
would bring the most careful and rigid economy 
into the administration of government. In Barry 
the State found such an executive : his New Eng- 
land hard sense had been strengthened, solidified, 
and broadened by pioneer life, and he was a fitting 
leader to bring the State back to ideas and prac- 
tices of economy and frugality, without at the same 
time lowering its character or tainting its admin- 
istration with meanness. He had been much in 
public life, but without at any time neglecting his 



GOVERNOR BARRY'S EXAMPLE. 295 

business as a merchant, and he had accumulated 
what was thought in those days a considerable for- 
tune, by strict attention to business in all its de- 
tails, and by prudent foresight and frugality in 
expenses. His honesty in public life was scrupu- 
lous, and it was a matter of course with him that 
he should expect, on coming to his new office, to 
give practical effect in state affairs to the pruden- 
tial rules and principles which he knew must be 
sound and wise for the public, because they were 
profitable and expedient when applied to the busi- 
ness of individuals. He was much lacking in 
popular manners, but he had been chosen governor 
in the belief that he would give the State a safe 
and economical administration, which above all 
things was what the people desired and the State 
needed at this time. The public expectation 
was fully justified : the public economy was rigid 
and well maintained during his administration ; 
and when men whose projects he frowned upon 
went off calling him a bear, and circulated by way 
of ridicule the story that he mowed the state 
house yard to sell the grass and put the money in 
the state treasury, the hard-working farmers of 
the State knew instinctively he was the proper 
executive for the time, and proceeded to give him 
a reelection. A bear before the treasury seemed 
quite in proper place just now, and no economy 
was ridiculous which pointed a moral. In spite 
of the governor's cold and repelling demeanor, he 



296 MICHIGAN. 

acquired a popularity to which few of his succes- 
sors attained ; and it may be said of his four years' 
service, that no other period of four years in the 
history of the State has been more useful to the 
people, who were now slowly but steadily and 
surely laying the foundations of a solid and per- 
manent prosperity. The works of internal im- 
provement were managed with prudence and econ- 
omy, and the offer which had been made to state 
creditors to sell them and receive in payment the 
outstanding state obligations was before the pub- 
lic, and preparing the way for the sale that soon 
afterwards took place. 

Emigrants continued to come into the State in 
considerable numbers, and the process of clearing 
off the forest and improving the land went on 
rapidly, but the people were able to add to their 
possessions only slowly and for the most part by 
hard labor and strict economy. Following Gov- 
ernor Barry came Alpheus Felch, who resigned in 
the second year of his service to accept the seat 
to which he had been elected as senator in Con- 
gress, and was succeeded for the remainder of the 
term by William L. Greenly. Then came Epaph- 
roditus Ransom, elected in 1847, in whose term 
the capital was removed from Detroit, where it 
had hitherto been, and located in the woods of 
Lansing forty miles from any railroad. In this 
same term are to be noted two exceptions to the 
general fact that the emigrants to Michigan came 



MORMONS IN MICHIGAN. 297 

singly or in families, and not in organized bodies 
of colonists. In 1847 a party of Hollanders, com- 
ing from their native land for greater religious 
liberty, under the leadership of Rev. Albertus C. 
Van Raalte of the Dutch Reformed Church, 
founded the village of Holland and also Hope Col- 
lege ; and they were followed from year to year by 
many others who also settled in the same part of 
the State, where they had schools and publica- 
tions in their native language and established 
many churches. They were sufficiently numerous 
to give a distinctive character to the population 
of many localities in that section of the State. 
But it was a good character and the people were 
not incongruous with the existing population of 
the State. 

A colony of a very different character settled 
on Beaver Island, led by James J. Strang, who 
had been a Mormon elder at Nauvoo and high in 
the confidence of Joseph Smith, the first prophet. 
After his superior was murdered, he claimed to 
have been designated as his successor, but he was 
defeated in his aspirations of leadership by Brig- 
ham Young, and driven off by excommunication. 
He went first to Voree, Wisconsin, where he 
started a colony on the community plan, but in 
1846 removed to Beaver Island, where he founded 
a settlement which was called after himself, St. 
James. Over this settlement he assumed the au- 
thority of high priest and king, and he made laws 



298 MICHIGAN. 

for it which were implicitly obeyed. Pie estab- 
lished and enforced rules of strict morality, pro- 
hibited entirely the sale of ardent spirits and en- 
forced the prohibition, observed the seventh day 
as the Sabbath, built a tabernacle, and collected a 
tenth from the people for religious and all other 
public purposes. For two successive terms he was 
elected a member of the legislature, and performed 
the duties with ability, and for the most part to 
general acceptance. But in 1849 he introduced 
polygamy, and though it never spread much 
among his people, it led to some secessions, to 
continuous trouble thereafter with the " gentiles," 
and to some armed collisions. In 1856 he was 
assassinated by renegade Mormons and the col- 
ony scattered, leaving behind it no trace in Michi- 
gan of this strange delusion. 

Governor Barry was reelected in 1849. Up to 
this time the constitution of 1835 had remained 
in force, and been satisfactory to the people. But 
now radicalism was in the air the world over, and 
discontent with existing institutions was rife in 
every civilized country. In France, Italy, Hun- 
gary, and Germany there were revolutions, or at- 
tempts at revolution with considerable success, 
and everywhere the aspiration of the people was 
for greater liberty and more privileges to the indi- 
vidual and less power to the rulers. For the over- 
throw of existing governments there could be no 
excuse in the United States, but uneasiness and a 



REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 299 

desire for change was general, and existing condi- 
tions in law and in society encountered sharp and 
persistent criticism. The current of anti-slavery 
agitation was particularly strong and uncompro- 
mising, and in 1848 the Democratic party of the 
country temporarily went down under its blows. 
An agitation in favor of greater rights and more 
distinct individual recognition of married women 
in the law went to some extent hand in hand with 
the agitation against slavery, but it found advo- 
cates in every party, and a general concession 
that some of its demands were proper. The gov- 
ernor's power of appointment under the existing 
constitution was particularly complained of: he 
appointed the judges and all the heads of depart- 
ment; and this seemed an imputation upon the 
judgment of the people. To most persons there 
seemed to be no good reason why they should not 
elect all of their officers as well as a part of them. 
That the various questions in government then 
agitating the public mind might be properly con- 
sidered, a constitutional convention was called, 
which met at Lansing on the first Monday of 
June, 1850, and proceeded to revise the constitu- 
tion of the State with much thoroughness, under 
the influence of the prevailing radicalism. A few 
of the more important provisions it will be inter- 
esting to notice. A married woman, it was de- 
clared, shall hold her property, whether acquired 
before or after marriage, to the same extent as if 



800 MICHIGAN. 

single, and may dispose of it by contract, deed, or 
will at pleasure. No more charters of private in- 
corporation shall be passed ; but corporations shall 
be formed under general laws, which shall at all 
times be subject to legislative control and repeal. 
By this provision the doctrine of the Federal Su- 
preme Court in the Dartmouth College case, that 
the charter of a private corporation is a contract, 
— a doctrine from which there had always been 
much dissent, — was meant to be altogether ex- 
cluded in respect to corporations thereafter formed. 
Aliens were given the liberty to hold real property 
with the same freedom as citizens. Judicial offi- 
cers from highest to lowest were required to be 
elected by the people, and so were all the heads 
of department and all other important officers. 
And various provisions were adopted to bring the 
exercise of power as near as possible, to the people 
concerned, and to make the responsibility constant 
and direct. Representatives in the lower house 
of the legislature were required to be elected for 
one legislature only, and in single districts. The 
county board of supervisors was made an impor- 
tant body, with considerable powers of local legisla- 
tion, and with authority to pass finally and exclu- 
sively upon all claims against the county. The 
old abuses of the Court of Chancery in England 
were remembered, and inspired a provision for 
abolishing the court, and handing its jurisdiction 
over to the courts of law. The temperance senti- 



RESTRICTIONS ON INDEBTEDNESS. 301 

ment found expression in a provision that licenses 
for the sale of intoxicating drinks should not be 
granted. The evils of unrestricted banking were 
still fresh in mind, and it was declared that no 
banking law should be passed without submission 
to the people, nor without individual liability on 
the part of officers and stockholders ; and the leg- 
islature was to have no power to authorize a sus- 
pension of specie payments. The grand jury was 
done away with as cumbrous and generally un- 
necessary, though one might be ordered for special 
cases. A very important and humane provision 
was that a homestead should be exempted from ex- 
ecution for debts, and also not less than five hun- 
dred dollars of personal property. And the legis- 
lature was required to make the public schools 
free. 

Many restrictions were imposed on the legisla- 
tive power of the State, but the most notable of 
these were such as concerned the finances. The 
State was now in debt, but its credit was good^ 
and it was determined that this should be sus- 
tained and the debt paid as speedily as possible- 
The legislature was therefore required immedi- 
ately to provide a sinking fund, which should be 
increased annually at least five per cent, until 
the whole debt was extinguished. The State was 
to be at liberty to contract debts to meet deficits 
in revenue, but not to exceed at any one time 
fifty thousand dollars ; and also to repel invasion, 



302 MICHIGAN. 

suppress insurrection, or defend the State in time 
of war. The issue of state script was prohibited. 
These provisions, with a prohibition against the 
State loaning its credit to individuals or corpora- 
tions, or engaging directly or indirectly in works 
of internal improvement, were thought ample to 
give protection against the consequences of a re- 
turn of the mania under which the five million 
loan had been contracted. 

The provisions respecting salaries of state offi- 
cials are deserving of notice, as indicating the ten- 
dency of public thought at the time. It is first to 
be remarked that the convention determined to fix 
the salaries, so that it should not be in the power 
of the legislature to increase them under the in- 
fluence of extravagant ideas or of lobby pressure. 
Next it is to be observed that the sums named 
were very small ; small even for the time, and soon 
to appear ridiculously so when the expenses of liv- 
ing should be greatly increased, and the State be- 
come populous and wealthy. The salary of the 
governor was fixed at one thousand dollars ; that 
of the circuit judges, who were then also judges of 
of the supreme court, one thousand five hundred 
dollars, while the other state officers were to re- 
ceive, some of them a thousand and some eight 
hundred dollars. The people of that day, who 
were only through the most rigid economy and by 
slow and patient steps advancing to a condition 
of financial independence in their private concern^ 



THE EFFECT OF LOW SALARIES. 303 

thought these salaries sufficient. They were equal 
to the average expenditure of well-to-do people ; 
and provision to that extent, it was thought, should 
content the public servants. At these figures the 
salaries, with the exception of those of the circuit 
judges, which have been raised to twenty -five hun- 
dred dollars, have remained ever since. It has 
been deemed, by many, a reproach to the State 
that this has been the case. The opinion is often 
and very strongly expressed, that to secure the 
best talent in the service of the State, the compen- 
sation must be equal to what the best talent se- 
cures in the various branches of private business. 
There is some degree of truth for this opinion ; at 
the same time it is probably true that no citizen 
of Michigan ever declined one of its leading offices 
for the reason solely that the salary fixed by the 
constitution was inferior to what he might reason- 
ably look for in private life. And it is also proba- 
bly true that the low compensation for public ser- 
vices has had a powerful tendency to keep alive 
ideas of economy and frugality in official circles 
and in all branches of state expenditure, and 
even among the people at large ; and that we may 
justly attribute to it some influence in securing 
the remarkable exemption from official pecula- 
tions and legislative scandals and corruption which 
the State for the most part has enjoyed. 

The constitution was adopted, and it has con- 
tinued to be the fundamental law of the State, with 



304 MICHIGAN. 

slight amendments, to the present day. One of its 
provisions is that every sixteenth year the question 
of a revision shall be submitted to the people. It 
was so submitted in 1866, and decided in the af- 
firmative ; but when a revision was prepared by a 
convention elected for the purpose, the people re- 
jected their work. In 1882 the question of re- 
vision was negatived by popular vote. Thus since 
1850 no disposition has been manifested to tinker 
the constitution, but conservative ideas have stead- 
ily prevailed. The most important amendment 
was made in 1875, in the repeal of the provision 
forbidding licenses, which was adopted in order to 
make way for heavy taxation of the liquor traffic, 
after prohibitory legislation had been in exist- 
ence for twenty years. Now and then complaints 
are made of the system which makes the judges 
elective, but these are based not so much upon 
experience as upon theory, and no considerable 
disposition has at any time been manifested among 
the people to change the system. Those who 
note carefully the results have not perceived that 
the people have shown less inclination to be in- 
dependent of party or of improper influence in the 
choice of judges than have been executive ofiicers 
when vested with the appointing power. 

A brief paragraph will bring us to the time 
of the great civil war. Robert McClelland was 
elected governor for one year in 1851 and was 
reelected for two years in 1852, but resigned to 



REPUBLICAN ASCENDENCY. 305 

become a member of the cabinet of President 
Pierce. Andrew Parsons, the lieutenant-governor, 
was left to serve out the unexpired portion of his 
term. Up to this time, from 1841, the Democratic 
party had been in power in the State, but in 1854 
the newly formed Republican party obtained the 
ascendency and maintained it unbroken for twenty- 
eight years, electing Kinsley S. Bingham gov- 
ernor in 1854 and 1856, and Moses Wisner in 
1858. Austin Blair was elected in 1860 and be- 
came the " war governor " of the State ; a title 
which by his integrity and patriotic vigor he made 
one of lasting honor. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE STATE PROVIDES FOR UNIVEESAL EDUCA- 
TION. 

The foundei's of a state soon pass away ; but in 
their aims and purposes, and to some extent in 
their personal characteristics, they build them- 
selves into the structure they create, and give to 
it a character and individuality of its own. Ages 
afterwards it may be found that the germinal 
thoughts which took root under their planting are 
still growing and expanding, and that the ideas 
with which they quickened the early polity are 
dominant in the life of the mature commonwealth, 
though possibly those who act upon and give effect 
to them may have lost the recollection of their 
origin. 

If the general education of the people is im- 
portant to the state, Michigan was fortunate in 
the persons to whom the destinies of the territory 
were committed in its early days. In their minds, 
as we find them expressed in the laws they 
adopted and the institutions they founded, two 
ideas appear to have been dominant from the earli- 
est period. These were, that the means of rudi- 



BEGINNINGS OF EDUCATIONAL WORK. 307 

mentary education should be placed within the 
reach of every child in the political society ; and 
that the opportunity for thorough culture should 
be given as speedily and as completely as the 
circumstances of the people would permit. And 
these ideas were never lost sight of until full effect 
was given to them after the admission of the 
State to the Union. 

The early schools in the territory were of course 
French, and connected with the church. Their 
main purpose was to give religious instruction, 
and they were attended to some extent by Indian 
children. But private schools in which English 
was taught were in existence from the time of the 
outbreak of the Revolutionary war; poor affairs, 
and scarcely worth remembering now. When 
Father Richard came, he made an endeavor in 
the direction of better church schools, and with 
considerable success. In 1804 he established a 
school for girls, with four young ladies as teachers, 
and also a Latin school for young men. Both of 
these were broken up by the great fire of the next 
year, but schools of less ambitious character were 
established shortly afterwards, and Father Richard 
in 1808 reports six of such schools, three of which 
were taught by Indian teachers. The instruction 
in the schools for girls embraced sewing, spinning, 
knitting, and weaving, and to the Indian children 
this part of the instruction was probably the most 
valuable. Father Richard thought his schools 



308 MICHIGAN. 

ought to receive public assistance, and he applied 
to the legislature for the grant of a lottery fran- 
chise ; but though the evils of lotteries were not 
so well understood then as now, his application 
failed of effect, and his schools continued feeble 
and of low grade. 

The future promised better things. Before the 
territory was detached from Indiana, it had become 
the settled policy of the United States to reserve 
from sale the sixteenth section of every surveyed 
township, and to set it apart for tlie use of the 
township for the support of common schools. It 
had also become customary to make some smaller 
donation of public lands for the endowment of a 
universit}^, and one township of such lands had 
been appropriated to Michigan, in contemplation 
of its becoming a separate government. But for 
a long time these donations must of necessity be 
of little value : value must be given to them by 
the settlement and improvement of the country, 
and in the mean time they would constitute the 
promise of an endowment for education rather 
than the endowment itself. All early education, 
if any was given at the public cost, must therefore 
be provided for by direct taxation of the people. 

In 1809, while as yet the population of the ter- 
ritory was under five thousand, an act was adopted 
which provided for the laying off into school dis- 
tricts of all the settled portions of the territory, 
and for an enumeration of the children between 



THE EARLY SCHOOLS. 309 

the ages of four and eighteen in each of the dis- 
tricts. From these districts annual reports were 
required of the moneys expended in the support 
of schools and the construction of school buildings, 
and the territory was to levy an annual tax of not 
less than two nor more than four dollars for each 
child reported within the ages above mentioned. 
The sum collected was to be apportioned among 
the districts ; not, however, in proportion to the 
number of children in them respectively, but in 
proportion to the sums they had expended in the 
year preceding for school purposes. The gift of 
the territory was thus made in aid of schools, but 
was so apportioned as to invite and encourage lib- 
erality on the part of the people in making pro- 
visions from their own means for them. 

The schools which were established under this 
act must have been very few in number, and very 
primitive in all their appointments. Eight years 
afterwards, however, something in the direction of 
higher and better education was attempted. Rev. 
John Monteith, a well-educated Presbyterian cler- 
gyman, had come to Detroit in 1816, where he had 
collected a congregation composed of various de- 
nominations of Protestants, to whom he preached 
on Sundays. He soon formed the acquaintance of 
Father Richard, and friendly intercourse between 
them brought out the fact that both were greatly 
concerned at the want of means of education for 
the youth of the territory, and willing and de- 



310 MICHIGAN. 

sirous to assist in supplying them. From Gov- 
ernor Cass they found ready and hearty coopera- 
tion, and the eccentric chief justice also lent assist- 
ance. The latter in August, 1817, drew up and 
secured the adoption of " An act to establish the 
Catholepistemiad or University of Michigania," 
in which an elaborate plan for a university was 
marked out. The plan was crude and pedantic, 
but its author had grasped certain principles 
which were of the very highest importance, and 
which from this time became incorporated in the 
polity of the territory, and subsequently of the 
State also. In every state, as he believed, the 
education of the people is important to the state 
itself, and should be assumed as a state duty. It 
should not be restricted to elementary education 
merely, but the state ought to place within the 
reach of its youth such higher education also as is 
commonly given in the colleges of the land. And 
this education should be non-sectarian. In rec- 
ognition of this duty the act provided that fifteen 
per cent, should be added to the regular territo- 
rial taxes, to be appropriated to the support of 
the university. Students entering the university 
should pay small fees if able, but if not able to 
pay, the fees should be a public charge. Sectari- 
anism in the university was not expressly legis- 
lated against, but its absence for the time was most 
effectually secured by the appointment of Mr. 
Monteith as president and Father Richard as hia 



A UNIVERSITY IN NAME. 311 

principal assistant in instruction. The Presbyte- 
rian and the Catholic, it was very certain, would 
not cooperate in sectarian work. 

This was an ambitious project for the young 
and feeble territory, which as yet was almost 
wholly without available means, and whose few 
schools were only of the most primitive character. 
It must have been very plain to every one that 
the complete realization of such a project could 
only be accomplished after many years ; but the 
earnest and enthusiastic parties who had taken 
hold of it determined to do immediately whatever 
should be found within their power. The people 
of Detroit were solicited for contributions towards 
the erection of a university building, and the 
foundations of the building were soon laid with 
appropriate ceremonies and public rejoicings. But 
though a school was soon begun, the education 
given in it was necessarily of the most elementary 
character. A building and a high-sounding name 
could not make a university : there must be stu- 
dents competent to receive collegiate instruction, 
and as yet there were no such students in the terri- 
tory. But it is something to have high aspira- 
tions, and to have made an effort in the direction 
of their realization. 

Nor while leading men among the white people 
were thus engaging in the preparatory work of 
education, were the Indians found indisposed to 
contribute some share to so important an object. 



312 MICHIGAN. 

The same article in the fundamental ordinance for 
the government of the territory which enjoined 
that "the utmost good faith shall always be ob- 
served towards the Indians," had also affirmed the 
necessity of religion, morality, and knowledge to 
good government and the happiness of mankind, 
and required the encouragement of schools and 
the means of education. This immediate associa- 
tion of religion and learning with good faith to 
the Indians was emphasized by the fact that the 
teachers of the Indians were also their religious 
guides ; and these had always been found to be 
their best friends, and their most reliable protect- 
ors against the rapacity and greed of their white 
neighbors. Possibly in the great conference of 
Governor Cass and General McArthur as com- 
missioners on the part of the United States with 
the chiefs of the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potta- 
watamie tribes of Indians, held at Fort Meigs on 
September 29, 1817, the governor may have ven- 
tured with diplomatic skill and caution to bring 
freshly to their minds the labors of their priests 
and teachers for their good ; and possibly the In- 
dians, who were seldom justly chargeable with 
forgetfulness of kind treatment, may have needed 
no reminder to incline them to make suitable ac- 
knowledgment. But whatever the fact may be as 
to the incentive, the value of religion and learning 
are found recognized by the treaty in a grant of 
six sections of land in equal shares to the Church 



UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 313 

of St. Anne at Detroit and to " the College at 
Detroit." The Indians made the grant, as they 
say in the treaty, because of being " attached to 
the Catholic religion, and believing they may wish 
some of their children hereafter educated." The 
gift to the college was not a large one, and it would 
have seemed insignificant if made before the In- 
dians had alienated the principal portion of their 
domain to the government ; but its merit must be 
estimated by what they had retained for their 
own use, rather than by the extent of their orig- 
inal possessions. The gift, moreover, was fully 
equal in positive value and prospectively superior 
to the gifts for like purposes which made John 
Harvard and Elihu Yale immortal, and quite as 
justly entitles Tontagini and his associate chief- 
tains to grateful remembrance among the founders 
of colleges. 

The act for the organization of the university 
was revised in 1821, and relieved of its pedantic 
features. To obtain preparatory schools, trustees 
were empowered to establish from time to time 
" such colleges, academies, and schools depending 
upon the said university as they may think 
proper, and as the funds of the corporation will 
permit ; " and the name was changed to the Uni- 
versity of Michigan. In the same act religious 
distinctions in the governing board, the board of 
instruction, and in the privileges of students were 
forbidden. 



314 MICHIGAN. 

But the university was still but a plan : beyond 
its name there was as yet but little to it. The 
practical development of the common school sys- 
tem was much more rapid, and gave promise that 
at length the University idea would be realized. 
Early in 1826 Congress was induced to grant an 
additional township of land towards the endow- 
ment of the university ; and Governor Cass, in call- 
ing the attention of the legislative council to this 
grant in the following November, strongly urges 
the establishment of schools to be suppoi'ted by 
taxation. In no other way, he thinks, will pro- 
vision be made sufficiently extensive and suffi- 
ciently permanent to embrace all who require in- 
struction, and who have not the means of obtaining 
it. The governor specially emphasized the politi- 
cal aspect of the subject, and urged the importance 
that all who were to be rulers of the State should 
be given the means of acquiring fitness for their 
duties. 

These wise views were quite in advance of any 
then prevalent in any part of the country. The 
legislative council responded by making such 
changes in the school laws as seemed to the mem- 
bers to tend in the direction recommended. In 
1829 the laws were completely revised, and a 
department of education was established, at the 
head of which was to be a superintendent of com- 
mon schools appointed by the governor. The 
legislation does not, however, appear as yet to 



TEE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 315 

have been entirely satisfactory to the governor, 
and he again recurs to the subject in his message 
of the following May. No wiser or juster tax, 
he argues, can be levied than one devoted to the 
education of the poor ; and he reiterates and am- 
plifies his view, that political institutions whose 
foundations rest upon public opinion can never be 
secure unless the people are educated. " Public 
opinion, to be safe, must be enlightened." 

It cannot be important to follow in detail the 
subsequent legislation of the territory, and it will 
suffice to say that it was in the direction pointed 
out by the governor, and that provision was made 
whereby schools were required to be kept in every 
district for at least three months in each year by 
teachers of approved competency, in which the 
children of the poor were to be instructed free of 
charge or tax. The rate bill was not abolished 
for those who were able to pay it ; but the door of 
the school-house was set open to the poorest, and 
the people united in the expectation expressed by 
President Monteith in his first annual report, that 
" thus the public will be benefited by genius and 
talent which would otherwise have died in ob- 
scurity." 

But the schools at the time state government 
was established were still very primitive affairs. 
There were as yet no professional teachers. Some 
farmer or mechanic, or perhaps a grown-up son or 
daughter, who had had the advantages of the com- 



316 MICHIGAN. 

mon schools of New York or New England, offered 
his or her services as teacher during the dull sea- 
son of regular employment, and consented to take 
as wages such sum as the district could afford to 
pay. A summer school taught by a woman, who 
would be paid six or eight dollars a month, and a 
winter school taught by a man, whose compensa- 
tion was twice as great, was what was generally 
provided for. But in addition to wages the teacher 
received his board ; " boarding around " among the 
patrons of the school, and remaining with each a 
number of days determined by the number of pu- 
pils sent to the school. If we shall incline to visit 
one of these schools in the newer portions of the 
State we shall be likely to find it housed in a log 
structure, covered with bark, imperfectly plastered 
between the logs to exclude the cold, and still more 
imperfectly warmed by an open fire-place or by a 
box stove, for which fuel is provided, as the board 
for the teacher is, by proportional contributions. 
The seats for the pupils may be slabs set upon 
legs ; the desks may be other slabs laid upon sup- 
ports fixed to the logs which constitute the sides 
of the room. The school books are miscellaneous, 
and consist largely of those brought by the par- 
ents when emigrating to the territory. Those who 
write must rule their paper with pencils of lead of 
their own manufacture, and the master will make 
pens for them from the goose-quill. For the most 
part the ink is of home manufacture. There are 



THE AVERAGE DISTRICT SCHOOL. 317 

no globes ; no means of illustration ; not even a 
blackboard. Even President Monteith, it is said, 
drew his mathematical figures in sawdust for want 
of anything better ; but in the common schools the 
higher mathematics are unknown, and the pupil 
who has mastered vulgar fractions and the rule of 
three is likely to be the best of the school. Order 
is the first law, and the rod the accepted means of 
enforcing it. The pupils are classified according 
to attainments, but not unfrequently the master 
has little competency to do more than give out 
the lessons as he found them in the book, and to 
hear recitations without comment or explanation. 
Such in many cases was the Michigan school. 
Better school buildings were now springing up, 
with better furnishing ; but as a rule nothing 
could seem more dreary or dispiriting than the 
average district school. Nevertheless, many an 
intellect received a quickening in these schools 
which fitted it for a life of useful and honorable 
activity. The new settlers made such provision 
for the education of their children as was possible 
under the circumstances in which they were placed, 
and the fruits of their labors and sacrifices in this 
direction were in many cases surprising. 

The territorial council granted charters for acad- 
emies, but the name in most cases indicated rather 
an aspiration than an existence. In two or three 
places good service was being done ; notably at 
Ann Arbor by Mr. O. C. Thompson, a graduate of 



318 MICHIGAN. 

Princeton, sent out for missionary work by the 
Presbyterian Church. But farther back in the 
woods, a young graduate of Brown, while thread- 
ing his devious way through the forest from one 
lonely cabin to another, by trails that required the 
fording of rivers and the crossing of treacherous 
marshes, that he might minister in sacred things 
to those in need, was at the same time consider- 
ing the means of popular education, and making 
it the subject of deep and earnest thought. He 
was quite in accord with the governor as to the 
duty of the State to provide for the education of 
its youth, and the questions he dwelt upon were 
questions of methods and means. 

John D. Pierce had been sent out in 1831 by 
the Congregationalists as a home missionary, and 
had held the first religious meetings in the coun- 
ties of Jackson, Calhoun, and Eaton. He had 
also solemnized the first marriage and officiated at 
the first funeral ever taken in charge by a Prot- 
estant clergyman in western Michigan. He was 
an enthusiast in his work, but his enthusiasm was 
tempered and controlled by thorough practical 
sense, and he joined to the earnestness and self- 
abnegation of the devoted missionary the level- 
headedness so essential to success in the ordinary 
walks of business life. He had brought with him 
into the wilderness as a bride an intelligent and 
refined lady whom he had married in the State of 
New York, and we catch occasional glimpses of 



FRONTIER MISSIONARY LIFE. 319 

her as she is conveyed in an open ox-cart from 
Detroit to distant Marshall, often drenched in rain 
and sometimes fast in the mud, catching at night 
as best she may such unrefreshing rest as a bed of 
boughs or a blanket on the floor of a log cabin may 
afford. It is a time when emigration comes by 
caravans ; and though at nearly every house may 
there be found entertainment for man and beast, 
the accommodations are meagre and quite below 
the demands upon them. To the bride, delicately 
trained and unfamiliar with hardships, the log 
cabins of Michigan, in which many of the ordinary 
comforts of home life were as yet unknown, must 
have seemed sufficiently forbidding ; but she was 
not long permitted to share her husband's labors 
and privations, for in the very next year the Asi- 
atic cholera in its devastating march across the 
country sought her out in the wilderness and made 
her its victim. The missionary was left alone with 
his labors ; but he had devoted his life to the work 
to which he had been called, and he addressed 
himself with patience and trust to his laborious 
and absorbing duties. 

The constitutional convention of 1835 had rec- 
ognized the supreme importance of education, and 
had made the position of superintendent of public 
instruction a permanent constitutional office. It 
had required a school to be kept in each school 
district for at least three months in every year, 
and had pledged the faith of the State to the pres- 



320 MicniGAN. 

ervation of all donations for schools or for the 
university, as permanent funds for the purposes 
for which they were given. But as yet the State 
was not admitted to the Union, and it was not 
known what form any donation by the federal 
government would take. General Isaac E. Crary, 
a neighbor of the young missionary, had been a 
member of the constitutional convention, and the 
two had frequently discussed together the subject 
of state education, and had enlightened their un- 
derstandings, so far as the books of the day would 
enable them to do so, by information respecting 
what was being done in Prussia and other coun- 
tries. They agreed that education ought to be an 
independent department of the state government; 
and it was made so by the constitutional convention. 
They also agreed that the lands granted by the 
general government for school purposes ought to 
be granted directly to the State as trustee, instead 
of being given to the townships as had been cus- 
tomary. With the State as trustee of the lands, 
there would be reason for hope that the endow- 
ment for schools would be carefully preserved and 
utilized, but in the hands of the townships the 
experience of other states had not been such as 
to justify confidence in like preservation. Fortu- 
nately for the State, General Crary was its first 
representative in Congress ; and through his pru- 
dent and cautious management the grant by the 
general government was so shaped as to meet his 



THE STATE SYSTEM OF SCHOOLS. 321 

views. This was a great and lasting advantage, 
and the ultimate results were equal to the highest 
expectations of those who had secured it. The 
State faithfully observed its duty as trustee ; no 
part of the school-fund grant was ever lost ; none 
of the funds derived from it were ever squandered 
or misappropriated. 

But the services of General Crary to education 
were not confined to those performed at Washing- 
ton. On his way to the seat of government he 
had called upon Governor Mason at Detroit, and 
had taken the liberty'' to urge upon him the im- 
portance of placing the subject of education in com- 
petent hands. He had gone farther than this, and 
recommended the young missionary as the suitable 
person for superintendent of public instruction. 
The governor was favorably impressed with his 
views, and sent for Mr. Pierce, with whom he had 
a long and satisfactory interview. The result was 
his appointment to the office, and the commit- 
ment to his control of the whole subject of state 
education, with the charge and management of a 
million acres of land. The legislature called upon 
him to prepare and report a system of common 
school and university education, and the report 
was made, approved, and adopted the very year 
the State entered the Union. The system re- 
ported has in the main been in existence ever 
since. 

It would not be important to enter here upon 

21 



322 MICHIGAN. 

an examination of the state common school sys- 
tem in detail. It will suffice to say that it con- 
templated the establishment of a primary school 
within the reach of every child in the State, and 
that it gave full power to the voters of every 
school district to establish free schools if they 
should see fit to do so. The time had not yet 
come for making the maintenance of free schools 
compulsory : public opinion in some quarters was 
not yet educated up to it. But the law then 
adopted was a long step in that direction ; and 
the distribution to be annually made among the 
school districts, of the income derived from moneys 
received on sales of school lands, would do some- 
thing towards encouraging them to make the 
schools free, and towards lightening the burden 
of doing so. 

The plan for the organization of the university 
was not so readily accepted as that for the primary 
schools. Mr. Pierce encountered at the outset a 
prejudice against state universities, and a disbelief 
in their success, based upon the failure that had 
generally attended the effort to establish them. 
He encountered also, to some extent, the opposition 
of the several religious denominations, each of 
which wanted a college of its own, and was also 
jealous lest some other might obtain control of a 
state institution. But the superintendent had faith 
in himself and faith in the people ; and he pro- 
ceeded to mark out a plan which he proposed to 



THE PLAN OF THE UNIVERSITY. 323 

put in operation on a non-sectarian basis, and with 
a curriculum of studies not inferior to that of any 
college in the land. The government of the uni- 
versity was to be in a board of regents of execu- 
tive appointment, with the state officers as ex offi- 
cio members, and its support was to come from 
the income derived from the sale or leasing of uni- 
versity lands. No more than ten dollars was to 
be demanded for admission to the university, and 
residents of the State were to be charged nothing 
for tuition. The plan contemplated a depai-tment 
of literature, science, and the arts, a department of 
law, and a department of medicine, to be estab- 
lished successively as the funds at the control of 
the regents would permit. In the appointments to 
the several chairs of instruction it was intended 
that the leading religious denominations should be 
suitably represented, and that no just cause of 
complaint should be open to any one on the score 
of religious partiality in the governing board. 

This was the general plan. But obviously it 
was a plan whose complete realization must be 
postponed for some considerable period. It was 
not proposed that there should be in the university 
any preparatory department ; and the old diffi- 
culty, that there were no students prepared to re- 
ceive the higher instruction, was still as apparent 
as ever. In the whole State, also, there were not 
more than one or two schools in which the neces- 
sary preparatory training could be had. Prepara- 



324 MICHIGAN. 

tory schools seemed, therefore, to be the first ne- 
cessity ; and partly to provide them, and partly to 
give agricultural education, the regents were em- 
povrered to establish branches of the university 
when their means would allow of it. 

The department of literature, science, and the 
arts was shortly established, with beginnings 
which were very humble. But its five students 
for the first year were added to in each successive 
year, until the department attained the dimensions 
of a respectable college. In 1850 the department 
of medicine was established, and something of the 
university form began to appear. By the new 
constitution, adopted that year, the organization 
of the board of regents was popularized by giving 
the election to the people by direct vote. The 
term, moreover, was made a term of eight years, 
and the board was given complete control of the 
university and its funds, to the exclusion of legis- 
lative dictation. This was felt to be a most valu- 
able and important change : it secured steadiness 
in plan and conservatism in management, and it 
placed the university beyond the dangers that 
might spring from popular excitements and preju- 
dices, and from political overturns. A few years 
later was founded the department of law, giving 
symmetry to the university, and bringing strength 
to the other departments. 

Meantime the curriculum of the university was 
being enlarged and liberaUzed in many ways, and 



THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM. 325 

especially in giving to students a latitude in the 
choice of studies quite beyond what had before 
been allowed in similar institutions. The fact 
was recognized that the needs of intellectual train- 
ing and acquirement were not the same in differ- 
ent occupations and different walks in life, and 
that to prescribe the same course of instruction 
for all was to compel a waste of time and effort 
by many, when the same time and effort might 
usefully be employed in the acquisition of knowl- 
edge that would have special importance and 
value. Many parallel courses of instruction were 
therefore marked out, and a liberty of choice given 
that was greatly to the advantage of those who 
desired to avail themselves of university training. 
New schools were also established : the school of 
pharmacy, the school of horaoepathic medicine, 
the dental school, the school of music, and the 
school of political science ; so that the university 
came to have many departments, instead of the 
three originally contemplated. To give all these 
schools due suppoi-t, the income derived from the 
sale of university lands was found quite inade- 
quate, and the State by taxation supplied the de- 
ficiencies, though observing in doing so the same 
rigid economy that had always characterized its 
expenditures for services rendered to the public. 
The regents also, disregarding antiquated preju- 
dices, and the prophecies of evil with which ultra- 
conservatism was so ready, threw open the doors 



326 MICHIGAN. 

of every school to women, and thereby offered to 
them every opportunity for liberal education which 
was placed within the reach of the other sex. 
This was a measure of justice, and its advocates 
soon had the satisfaction of knowing that none 
of the prophesied evils followed from it. It was 
adopted as soon as the demand for it was sufficient 
to justify incurring the necessary additional ex- 
pense, and it had from the first and has retained 
the popular approval. 

The branches of the university which the re- 
gents established were not long maintained, for the 
sufficient reason that they were not long needed. 
The common schools of the State came in time to 
do admirable work, and in the leading towns they 
grew into high schools, with numerous teachers, 
where the classics were taught, and where young 
men and women could be and were prepared for 
college. Admirable work was done by some of 
them in this direction ; and one — the school at 
Ann Arbor — annually for the ten years preced- 
ing 1884 graduated an average number of pu- 
pils, with full preparation to enter upon a regu- 
lar university course, greater, it is believed, than 
is fitted for college in any other public school in 
the country. These high schools are the acad- 
emies of the State ; the work they do is of the 
most satisfactory and substantial character, and 
the State is justly proud of them. 

The constitution of 1850 made it the duty of 



INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS. 327 

the legislature, within five years from its adoption, 
to make provision in every school district for free 
instruction at least three months in the year. 
The duty was only in part performed within the 
time prescribed; but the high schools as a rule 
were soon for the most part made free, and the 
rate bill is now at last abolished throughout the 
State. Free instruction in the common schools 
has thus become the right of every child of proper 
age in the State. 

Such in brief has been the progress of instruc- 
tion in the common schools, which are the founda- 
tion of the state system of education, and in the 
university which crowns and completes the struc- 
ture. But between the common school and the 
university are other institutions, each of which has 
its appropriate place in the system, and is neces- 
sary to complete it. Foremost of these are the 
State Normal School at Ypsilanti, and the State 
Agricultural College at Lansing. A school for 
the deaf and dumb at Flint and another for the 
blind at Lansing are liberally supported by the 
State, and make ample provision for such educa- 
tion as those unfortunate classes are capable of 
receiving. In 1874 a state school for depend- 
ent children was opened at Coldwater. Into this 
school are gathered orphan children who are 
without means of support, and children who be- 
come inmates of county almshouses, and they 
are not only given the ordinary instruction of 



328 MICHIGAN. 

schools, but the benefits of family life as well. It 
is a part of the plan of the school that suitable 
homes where they may be adopted, or places 
where they can receive remunerative employ- 
ment, shall be found for the pupils. In this way 
many who would be in danger of drifting through 
want and neglect into vice and crime are saved to 
useful and honorable lives. 

Such is the educational system of Michigan. 
Its founders took position in advance of the 
thought of their day, and those who followed 
them have endeavored to give effect in full meas- 
ure to their views. No commonwealth in the 
world makes provision more broad, complete, or 
thorough for the general education of the people, 
and very few for that which is equal. It has been 
the settled conviction of the people for many 
years, that there can be no more worthy expen- 
diture of public moneys than in the training of 
men and women in useful knowledge ; and they 
have acted upon that conviction. The newer 
states of the Union in framing their educational 
systems have been glad to follow the example of 
Michigan, and have had fruitful and satisfactory 
success in proportion as they have adhered to it. 
And for all that has been accomplished, Michigan 
is indebted to the intelligence, the unselfishness, 
and the far-seeing wisdom of some of its own em- 
inent citizens, who with the public confidence for 
their support have not waited for older but more 



EDUCATION IN MICHIGAN. 329 

provincial states to point the way, but have trnst- 
fully moved on from step to step in the direction 
of an ideal excellence which was early in their 
minds, and has been steadily adhered to since. 

No feature of the educational walk of Michigan 
is more satisfactory in the retrospect than the 
unity of effort in prosecuting it ; all classes, as a 
general fact, having given it liberal support. This 
is true of the immigrant as well as of the native 
born citizen ; and of the Germans, who were most 
numerous of the later immigrants, it may justly 
be said, they were as active and helpful in sup- 
port of the schools as they were industrious and 
thrifty in their private business. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE WAR IN DEFENSE OF THE UNION. 

A GREAT war was now about to convulse the 
Union, of which slavery would be the occasion, 
but which would present issues far transcending 
in importance any which were involved in the 
further continuance of that institution, great as 
were the evils which necessarily sprung from it. 
The states of the Union, which at the time of the 
separation from the mother country were thirteen 
in number, had added other commonwealths one 
by one until the whole number had become thirtj^- 
three, united under a constitution which gave to 
the weakest for all purposes of protection the 
strength and resources of all, and which, by pro- 
viding for the peaceful consideration and adjust- 
ment by regular tribunals of all controversies, 
which might otlierwise give occasion for appeals 
to force, gave to the whole family of states the 
best security for amicable and profitable relations, 
and to civilization the best protection that it is 
possible for statesmanship to devise. The same 
constitution, while it insured peace to the states, 
diminished immensely the danger of hostilities 



THE PROPOSAL FOR DISUNION. 331 

with foreign nations, not only because it made 
the states thus united sufficiently powerful to 
command respect, but also because it left interna- 
tional relations exclusively to the federal govern- 
ment, and put it out of the power of any single 
state, or even of any number of states, to disturb 
the peace of the world without the general con- 
sent given through the federal Congress. Under 
the influence of the passions excited by the con- 
troversy over slavery it was now proposed to break 
up the Union into sections. That great evils were 
likely to flow from this was certain ; only the 
number and extent were in doubt. It would be a 
distinctively retrogressive step, taken in a century 
when civilization was progressing more rapidly 
than ever before ; it must abolish, as between the 
states, in different sections, the methods provided 
for the peaceful determination of controversies ; if 
it could be accomplished peacefully, which was 
more than doubtful, it would still multiply im- 
mensely the dangers to peace among the states, 
and would make the very proximity of states 
friendly in union a continual menace and danger. 
And the claim of a right to disrupt the Union was 
planted upon a principle of disintegration whose 
very acceptance would not only be justification in 
advance for further separations, but would be a 
constant and tempting invitation to discontented 
parties to reject the adjustment of controversies 
by regular tribunals, and substitute the arbitra- 



332 MICHIGAN. 

ment of tlie sword. The proposed disruption of 
the Union must therefore, irrespective of its effect 
upon the institution of slavery, he a distinct loss 
to civilization, in that it would destroy or at least 
diminish the securities which statesmanship had 
contrived for the peace of the world, and especially 
for the peace and prosperity of the American 
world. It would also, in its demonstration that 
the written constitution of the leading federal 
government of the world was inadequate to the 
strain and crucial test of a heated domestic con- 
troversy, tend to weaken very greatly the popular 
tendency towards free institutions, and the har- 
monious cooperation of free states which was char- 
acteristic of the age. 

But slavery was an element of discord in the 
Union which it was daily becoming more difficult 
to deal with peacefully. It had had its origin at 
a time when it was not condemned as it now was 
by the enlightened conscience of the civilized 
world. There were slaves in Virginia when the 
Pilgrims landed at Plymouth ; and every Ameri- 
can colony became slaveholding, and continued to 
be so when, by their declaration of Independ- 
ence, the united colonies declared liberty to be an 
inalienable right. When independence was ac- 
knowledged by Great Britain, only one state had 
as yet become non-slaveholding. So accustomed 
were the people to the institution, that its right- 
fulness was seldom questioned, and only now and 



THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 333 

then did any one venture to remark upon the in- 
consistency of a people fighting for their own lib- 
erties while holding others in bondage. The first 
damaging blow to slavery may almost be said to 
have been inadvertent : it was when the people of 
Massachusetts, without chattel slavery in mind, 
declared by the constitution of 1780 that " all 
men are born free and equal, and have certain 
natural, essential, and inalienable rights; among 
which may be reckoned the right of enjoying 
and defending their rights and liberties." This, 
as the courts decided, of its own force put an end 
to slavery within the state. The second and far 
more important blow was given when Congress 
incorporated in the ordinance of 1787 the anti- 
slavery proviso. This was a great and notable 
event ; and was prophetic of others, for it was a 
precedent for putting the government distinctly 
on the side of freedom. And then in 1820 came 
the Missouri Compromise legislation, by which 
slavery was prohibited in all the territory then 
belonging to the Union lying to the north of lat- 
itude thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes. 

It seemed at the time that the Missouri Compro- 
mise insured to the non-slaveholding states an 
eventual preponderance of power in the Union ; 
but this was put in peril by the large acquisitions 
of territory from Mexico at the conclusion of war 
with that republic. In the justice of the war with 
Mexico there had not been entire unaminity of 



334 MICHIGAN. 

opinion on the part of the American people. Many 
had beUeved it was begun and carried on solely 
for the purposes of an extension of slavery, and for 
obtaining territory which would eventually become 
slave states ; and they deemed it their duty, while 
the war was still in progress, to render such a re- 
sult impossible, by annexing a condition to any 
appropriation for the acquisition of territory, that 
in whatever should be acquired there should be 
no slavery. 

General Cass was at that time in the Senate of 
the United States, to which he had been elected 
in 1845. He opposed the condition, on the grounds, 
among others, that it would probably defeat alto- 
gether any acquisition of territory from Mexico, 
and also that at most it would be a mere declara- 
tion of present legislative intent on the subject, 
and would bind no subsequent Congress when 
practical legislation came to be adopted. A lit- 
tle later he wrote his famous Nicholson letter, in 
which he laid down the doctrine that no power 
had been granted to Congress by the constitution 
to legislate generally for the territories, and that 
its authority must be limited to the establishment 
of territorial governments when needed, leaving 
to the people of the territories the regulation of 
their own domestic concerns, in subordination to 
the constitution. This would leave to the territo- 
rial legislature the full control over the subject of 
slavery. Upon the platform of this letter General 



THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. 335 

Cass was nominated for the presidency in 1848, 
but was defeated. He returned after the election 
to a seat in the Senate, which he had vacated 
pending the canvass, and took part in the adoption 
of the compromise measures of 1850, which it was 
hoped would put an end to an exciting and dan- 
gerous controversy. 

But the compromise of 1850 was not even a 
truce between hostile and opposing forces : it was 
rather an agreement by parties assuming to stand 
between such forces that there should be no more 
contention, while at the same time the real bellig- 
erents remained as hostile as ever, and awaited 
the opportunity for an encounter. The opportu- 
nity was not long delayed : the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill in 1852, and the state of civil war in Kansas 
which resulted, created the most intense excite- 
ment throughout the country, and strengtliened 
very greatly the anti-slavery sentiment in all the 
Northern States, while intensifying in the South- 
ern States the opposite sentiment. In Michigan a 
political revolution took place in 1854, one of the 
results of which was that General Cass failed of a 
reelection to the Senate, and Zachariah Chandler 
succeeded him. 

In the presidential election of 1856 the question 
of setting bounds to the further extension of sla- 
very was the paramount issue, and it continued 
to be the leading and almost the sole issue in na- 
tional affairs until after the election of 1860, when 



336 MICHIGAN. 

the party which avowed its determination to pre- 
serve the territories for freedom, while disclaiming 
any purpose to interfere with the institution of 
slavery in the states, succeeded in electing Abra- 
ham Lincoln to the office of president. But par- 
ties, as was inevitable with the issue which was 
made, had divided on sectional lines. 

Immediately after the election, distinct and au- 
thoritative announcements began to be made in 
the Southern States that it would not be submitted 
to. It was declared that the election of president 
b}"^ a party hostile to slavery was a wrong and 
a menace to all the slaveholding states, whieli 
neither their interests nor their honor would per- 
mit them to acquiesce in. It was declared further 
that the states, which had assented to the constitu- 
tion and become members of the Federal Union, 
had an undoubted right to withdraw that assent 
at any time and to secede from the Union ; and 
several of the states in a short time had called 
conventions composed of delegates chosen by the 
people, by which ordinances of secession from the 
Union were adopted. These states assumed to be 
thereafter no longer under the federal jurisdiction, 
and they formed among themselves a confedera- 
tion and adopted a provisional constitution. 

The people of the Northern States, as a general 
fact, neither agreed that the slave states had been 
wronged in the election of an anti-slavery presi- 
dent, nor assented to the right of a state to secede 



THE BORDER STATE COMPROMISE. 337 

from the Union. Assent to the constitution they 
regarded as irrevocable : it made the states a na- 
tion, and imposed upon the nation the obligation 
ko enforce its laws in every state regardless of any 
action the state or its citizens might take to the 
contrary. The border slave states took a position 
different from those taken to the north and the 
south of them. The people for the most part 
sympathized with their Southern brethren, both 
in their view of the wrong that was done them in 
the election, and in their belief in the right to se- 
cede ; but they deprecated the action which the 
extreme Southern States had taken, as being calcu- 
lated to lead to civil war. How to avert such a war 
now that the action had been taken was the ques- 
tion. It was assumed in the border slave states 
that those states, occupying as they did a position 
between the others, both geographically and po- 
litically, were entitled to speak with some author- 
ity as pacificators, and that it belonged to them 
to propose some compromise, whereby the hostile 
sections by mutual concessions could be brought 
again to their ancient harmony. Accordingly Mr. 
Crittenden, one of the senators from Kentucky, 
took the lead in proposing a compromise ; but its 
concessions were not such as to satisfy the extreme 
South, while at the same time they were more than 
the North would consent to make. When this re- 
sult became certain, a peace conference, as it was 
called, to be composed of commissioners from each 

22 



338 MICHIGAN. 

of the states, was invited to convene in Washing- 
ton in February, 1861, to consider and if possible 
agree upon and report to Congress some plan of 
compromise and conciliation, by the adoption of 
which the seceding states might be won back to 
the Union. What was desired was that each state 
would send its most eminent and conservative 
citizens as commissioners ; and it was then hoped 
that their aggregate wisdom would be sufficient to 
devise a plan of conciliation and harmony adequate 
to the emergency, and that the influence of their 
united counsel would secure its adoption. 

Certain concessions by the North it was gen- 
erally supposed would be absolutely essential. 
Among these was a provision by constitutional 
amendment for the more effectual return of fugi- 
tive slaves escaping to Northern States, and for 
payment of their value when they escaped by rea- 
son of assistance given them. But one of more 
importance was that the territories should be open 
to settlement by slave owners with their slaves, 
and that all power in Congress to legislate against 
slavery in the territories should be taken away by 
express constitutional provision. It was in respect 
to this last feature of the proposed concessions that 
the chief difficulty was likely to be encountered, 
for it was a concession of the very principle on 
which the recent election had been won. 

Nevertheless the Union was in peril, and twenty- 
two states sent commissioners to the conference. 



THE STAND TAKEN BY MICHIGAN. 339 

Michigan by the deliberate act of her legislature 
refused to participate in it. The name of peace 
conference seemed to the people of the State a 
misnomer : the conference was to be held under 
an implied threat of war unless one section of the 
Union surrendered altogether its leading political 
principle. Mr. Buchanan in his annual message 
had declared that he found in the constitution no 
authority for coercing states withdrawing from the 
Union, but his conclusions found little support in 
Michigan. Governor Wisner, who had just left the 
executive chair, had said in retiring : " Michigan 
cannot recognize the right of a state to secede from 
this Union." If individuals, whether as private 
citizens or as officers, attempted to take their state 
out of the Union, the nation must deal with them, 
not by way of coercing the state, but to compel 
individuals to obey the laws of the United States, 
and to perform national obligations. Austin Blair, 
the new governor, had repeated and amplified the 
sentiments of his predecessor. " Safety lies in 
this path alone. The Union must be preserved 
and the laws must be enforced in all parts of it at 
whatever cost. . . . Secession is revolution, and 
revolution in the overt act is treason, and must be 
treated as such." These utterances expressed the 
sentiments of the State. The Union had not been 
formed on any understanding that it might be dis- 
solved at will by dissatisfied parties, and to con- 
cede the right would be destructive of all its ad- 



340 MICHIGAN. 

vantages. If constitutional obligations had been 
violated in the election other considerations would 
be presented, but the voters of the State had done 
nothing but exercise their undoubted right in tak- 
ing part with others in the election of a constitu- 
tional officer in a perfectly constitutional way ; 
acting, in doing so, upon matured convictions and 
according to the dictates of their consciences. 
They therefore had nothing in their action to re- 
gret, nothing to withdraw, nothing in point of 
principle to compromise away. They were at 
peace now without the aid of the peace conference, 
and they would remain at peace unless war should 
be opened upon the Union of which the State was 
a part ; and if war should thus come, all the grand 
results which had been anticipated in the forma- 
tion of the Union and which so far had been re- 
alized would be at stake, and nothing would re- 
main but to put forth such effort to save the Union 
as might be within the compass of state power 
and resources. Such were the views which found 
expression at Washington through the representa- 
tives of the State in Congress. Senator Chandler 
in a speech in the Senate said : " The people of 
Michigan are opposed to all compromises. They 
do not believe that any compromise is necessary ; 
nor ^o I. They are prepared to stand by the con- 
stitution of the United States as it is ; to stand by 
the government as it is ; to stand by it to blood if 
necessary." And a little later he said it would 



THE UPRISING AFTER SUMTER. 341 

be more reasonable to join a tribe of savages than 
to live under a government that had not power to 
enforce its laws. 

The peace conference was abortive, and on Fri- 
day, April 12, 1861, war upon the Union was inau- 
gurated by the attack on Fort Sumter. On the 
following Sunday the officer in command lowered 
his flag in surrender, and the captors marched in 
with rejoicings as for a great victory. The victory 
was a fatal one for slavery ; any earnest and pro- 
longed contest for the preservation of the Union 
necessarily involved the existence of that institu- 
tion. It also necessarily referred to the arbitra- 
ment of war the dogma of the right of states to 
secede from the Union. On the same Sunday 
that Sumter was evacuated, the petople of Michigan 
in their several localities were gathering after 
church services, in parks and other public places, 
to counsel together respecting the alarming crisis 
that was now upon them, and to prepare for the re- 
sponsibilities which were involved in a struggle for 
national existence. The most eminent and trusted 
citizen was in every place the speaker. At Ann 
Arbor, the seat of the state university, Dr. Henry 
P. Tappan, its eminent and respected president, 
addressed the assembled people, impressing upon 
them with great force and earnestness the neces- 
sity of the Union to the peace, prosperity, and 
happiness of the people of all the states, and the 
duty of every citizen to defend it at any necessary 



342 MICHIGAN. 

sacrifice. Slavery as the occasion of the war was 
rarely alluded to in these meetings ; the issues of 
the opening contest rose far above any question of 
domestic policy, constitutional law, or party poli- 
tics. 

When Sumter surrendered, Lewis Cass, who in 
the cabinet of President Buchanan had done all 
that was in his power to hold every state to its 
place in the Union, was living in retirement at 
Detroit. A great public meeting was convened 
in that city on one of the dark days which fol- 
lowed, and he was called upon as its most distin- 
guished citizen to preside. Naturally his mind 
reverted to the day, nearly fifty years before, when 
near the very spot where the meeting was being 
held, an American general, who had lost the cour- 
age and vigor of his youth, had subjected the peo- 
ple to dishonorable capitulation. The venerable 
statesman was himself now old and feeble ; youth- 
ful ardor had given way to some degree of de- 
spondency ; but he had lost nothing of his attach- 
ment to the Union, and he thanked God as he 
took the chairman's seat that the flag of the Union 
still floated unmutilated above him. His remarks 
were brief, but they expressed the general senti- 
ment and determination of the people of the city 
and of the State. " It is the duty of all zealously 
to support the government in its efforts to bring 
this unhappy civil war to a speedy and satisfactory 
conclusion, by the restoration in its integrity of 



THE RESULTS OF THE WAR. 343 

that great charter of freedom bequeathed to us by- 
Washington and his compatriots." The address 
was brief but significant, and there was inspiration 
for others in the fact that the venerable statesman 
did not tolerate the thought of a divided country. 
The history of Michigan in the war is part of 
the general history of the country, and nothing 
need be said of it here but that the State did its 
full duty, putting more than ninety thousand men 
into the field, of whom many thousand were left 
to rest in soldiers' graves. The four years' war was 
unsettling and demoralizing, as all wars necessa- 
rily are, and its effects were perceived in a spec- 
ulating feeling in business circles which gradually 
extended so as to bring within its mischievous vor- 
tex classes of persons who had never ventured be- 
fore. They were perceived also in a weakening 
of the sense of the sacredness of life and of private 
property ; and in some degree of the family senti- 
ment also ; and in a great increase of crimes of 
all sorts, but especially of crimes of violence. No- 
where in the Union were the rejoicings more 
hearty when the news came that Richmond was 
in the hands of the federal authorities, and that 
the preservation of the Union was made certain. 
A task which had seemed to other nations too 
desperate to be undertaken had been accomplished, 
and in the process of accomplishment the great 
domestic evil that had been the occasion of the 
war had been overthrown completely and forever. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE STATE AND THE NEW UNION. 

The great civil war had been fought on the part 
of the government to preserve the Union, and for 
no ulterior purpose whatever. " The constitution 
as it is and the Union as it was " was the rallying 
cry of the people, and the platform upon which 
Mr. Lincoln in his inaugural address proposed to 
found the policy of his administration. The acts 
of secession being deemed altogether void, the gov- 
ernment would endeavor to hold, occupy, and pos- 
sess the property and places belonging to it in all 
the states, and to enforce everywhere its laws, and 
thereby bring the people everywhere to a recog- 
nition and observance of federal authority and of 
their duties in respect to it. The political depart- 
ments of the federal government disclaimed alto- 
gether the right to interfere with any constitu- 
tional exercise of state authority, even in respect 
to the institution of slavery, though slavery had 
become the occasion of civil war. Loyal parties, 
whatever had been their political affiliations be- 
fore, agreed in pledging devotion to the constitu- 
tion as it had been formulated and adopted at the 



VALUE OF A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION. 345 

beginning, and their purpose to maintain it unim- 
paired. 

The peculiar excellence of the American con- 
stitutions was supposed to consist in the fact that 
they had been deliberately framed as written char- 
ters of government, so that they expressed all that 
was within the intent of the framers, and would 
stand as agreed upon without being subject to that 
gradual modification and change which is an in- 
herent quality when the constitution is unwritten. 
In the latter case, as in the conspicuous instance 
of the constitution of England, there will be gi-ad- 
ual building up and growth, which may at the 
time be wholly imperceptible, and only apparent 
in results ; but the written instrument comes into 
existence with the understanding and purpose that 
its several paragraphs and provisions shall mean 
forever exactly what they mean when adopted ; 
and if a change is to take place in the constitution, 
it must be brought about by the steps which in 
the instrument itself are provided for, and must 
consist in such modification of the language and 
provisions of the instrument, or of such emenda- 
tions or additions as shall be formally and deliber- 
ately made. By this means we are supposed to 
have at all times a written instrument which em- 
bodies the whole constitution ; and when we reach 
a proper interpretation of the powers it confers 
and the limitations it imposes upon those powers, 
as they stood in the minds of the people when 



846 MICHIGAN. 

adopting it, we are to give effect to that interpre- 
tation, in whatever may be done under the con- 
stitution at any time in the future. 

Such is the theory underlying American govern- 
ments. But the theory can be true only in the 
most general sense. No instrument can be the 
same in meaning to-day and forever, and in all 
men's minds. Its interpretation must take place 
in the light of the facts which preceded and led 
to it; in the light of contemporaneous history, 
and of what was said by the actors and the ends 
they had in view. And as men will differ upon 
facts and differ in mental constitution, so will 
they differ in interpretation ; and in the case of a 
written constitution, the divergences are certain 
to increase when it comes to receive practical 
application. And if at any time the people are 
subjected to a great constitutional crisis, they are 
not thereafter precisely the same in ideas, sen- 
timents, desires, hopes, and aspirations that they 
were before : their experience works changes in 
their views and in their habits of thought, and 
these may be so radical that they seem altogether 
a new people. But as the people change, so does 
their written constitution change also : they see 
it in new lights and with different eyes ; events 
may have given unexpected illumination to some 
of its provisions, and what they read one way be- 
fore they read a very different way now. Then 
the logic of events may for all practical purposes 



SCHOOLS OF INTERPRETATION. 347 

have settled some questions before in dispute ; and 
nobody, in his contemplation of the constitution, 
can sepai'ate it if he would from the history in 
which its important provisions have had a part, 
or be unaffected in his own views by that history. 
In constitutional countries there must be schools 
of interpretation and construction, in which men 
will range themselves according to the spirit and 
intent which they respectively discover in the char- 
ter of government. In the United States these 
have existed from the first ; and they have been 
given the names of Hamilton and Jefferson, because 
those great statesmen, when called to the perform- 
ance of important functions in government which 
involved a construction of the constitution, discov- 
ered respectively a different spirit and tendency 
in that instrument. Hamilton discovered in it a 
purpose to create and give vigorous energy to a 
great nation ; and in so far as the administration 
of the government fell to him, he deemed it his 
duty to give effect to this purpose. He was the 
ablest man of the day holding these views ; and 
being eminently endowed with the qualities of a 
leader, he became the natural head of the great 
national party. Jefferson read in the constitution 
a purpose to preserve the states in their integrity 
with all their powers, so far as was consistent with 
the existence of a confederacy having such author- 
ity as a strict construction of the constitution 
would give it. He also was a natural leader of 



348 MICHIGAN. 

men, and became the head of the state-rights 
school in constitutional interpretation. Holding 
such antagonistic views, it was natural and perhaps 
inevitable that these great leaders should suspect 
each other's motives and actions ; and that while 
Hamilton should come to think it was the pur- 
pose of Jefferson to set the states above the na- 
tion to the destruction of effective unity, Jefferson 
on the other hand should believe that his great 
rival was endeavoring to do whatever should be 
possible, in perverting the constitution to a con- 
centration of power in the federal government 
which the states had never agreed upon, and which 
if deliberately proposed would never have had 
their assent. From them the mutual suspicions 
extended to their friends and followers ; and their 
several public measures were regarded with jeal- 
ous eyes as having purposes in view which their 
authors would not venture to avow. The funding 
schemes of Hamilton for federal and state debts 
were not, in the eyes of Jefferson, so much vicious 
in themselves, as vicious in their purpose and ten- 
dency to concentrate power and rob the states of 
their due importance ; and when, under the ad- 
ministration of John Adams, affairs with France 
assumed a threatening aspect, other persons be- 
sides Jefferson were ready to suspect that Hamil- 
ton was willing war should result, not so much be- 
cause the conduct of France seemed imperatively 
to require it, as because he expected from the 



STATE SOVEREIGNTY AND NATIONAL UNITY. 349 

necessary concentration of power and expenditure 
in the general government, as a result of war, a 
great extension of its relative importance. 

The war of 1812 was attended by some peculiar 
circumstances, which had the effect to neutralize 
tendencies that might otherwise have appeared. 
The administration of the government was at the 
time in the hands of the state-rights party ; and 
its avowed principles would restrain it from tak- 
ing centralizing ground. A much more important 
circumstance was that some of the most influential 
states were in control of the party which had op- 
posed the war, and the general government was 
from that cause hampered and weakened through 
the whole of it. But afterwards and long before 
the great crisis of 1860, the construction of the 
constitution in its leading features had been de- 
termined by successive decisions of the federal 
Supreme Court in accordance with the views held 
by the school of Hamilton. The views of Mi-. 
Jefferson had also in a measure become discredited 
with the people, mainly through the nullification 
episode and the patriotic fervor at that time in- 
spired va defense of federal authority. But as 
the legislative and executive departments of the 
government had generally been in the hands of 
the party most strenuous for the preservation to 
the states of all their powers and rights, the ten- 
dency to centralization was kept perhaps as much 
in check as in the nature of things was possible. 



850 MICHIGAN. 

State sovereignty and national unity was a favorite 
phrase which was supposed to be a terse expres- 
sion of the leading ideas and purposes of this party 
in government. If a doubt at any time arose re- 
specting the relative province of state and nation, 
the principles of this party afforded an easy and 
simple test for its solution ; for presumptively all 
power was in the state until it could be shown 
how and in what provision of the constitution it 
had been given to the Union. 

The change when the great civil war came on 
was very great. The revolution of parties would 
account for some of this ; for the party which had 
succeeded in the recent presidential election was 
for the most part of the school of Hamilton. Jef- 
ferson had now been further discredited by the 
fact that those who were endeavoring to disrupt 
the Union claimed to be his followers and disciples, 
and quoted papers prepared by his hand in justifi- 
cation of their disintegrating doctrines. And it 
was easy to do this ; for under the strain of intense 
political feeling, when the federal government was 
adopting legislation of the most questionable char- 
acter, and which he believed was not only unwar- 
ranted by the constitution but subversive of lib- 
erty, he had secretly formulated for his followers 
the famous resolutions of '98 and '99, which 
seemed on their face to contain the germ of nulli- 
fication if not of secession. But the Abolitionists 
might, with quite as much reason, have claimed 



SUBORDINATION OF STATE RIGHTS. 351 

him as their prototype and leader ; for his condem- 
nation of slavery had been planted on the highest 
ground of morality and natural justice, and he had 
been prompt to legislate for freedom on the very 
first opportunity. Nevertheless, Jefferson for the 
time being was discredited in the public mind, 
and the correctness of Hamilton's views of gov- 
ernment was thought to be demonstrated by the 
attempt at secession, and by the need of extraordi- 
nary powers in the government to prevent it. It 
seemed to be the duty of patriotic citizens to 
strengthen the federal government in every pos- 
sible way, and remonstrances from any quarter, 
however well they might be grounded in constitu- 
tional law, and however honest their purpose, were 
listened to with impatience. The party of seces- 
sion had claimed to found their dogmas upon con- 
stitutional state rights, and to represent such 
rights in their rebellion ; therefore, as the war pro- 
gressed with its intense excitements and varying 
phases, the very term " state rights " became ob- 
noxious to patriotic ears as one which represented 
principles and interests standing in antagonism to 
the tremendous national interests, in defense of 
which the people were now so freely expending 
blood and treasure. 

Under the influence of sentiments like these, 
many clear infractions of the constitution were 
excused by the public as being justified by an 
overruling necessity; such, for example, as the in- 



352 MJCUIGAN. 

terference by federal forces with state elections 
in Kentucky. The longer the war continued and 
the more numerous were the excesses of power, 
the more they came to seem in the minds of many 
persons to be in harmony with the spirit of a 
constitution which was designed to insure the per- 
petuity of the Union, and might therefore be sup- 
posed to contemplate the doing of whatever was 
essential to that end. " We break the constitution 
that we may save it," was sometimes said : a par- 
adox, the mischief of which was not universally 
perceived until calmer times brought cooler heads. 
It was the opposite view — that the constitution 
might be appealed to for protection even by those 
who were seeking to destroy it — that seemed at 
the time preposterous. When, therefore, men were 
tried and condemned for treasonable practices be- 
fore military tribunals in Indiana, the proceedings 
were approved by a prevailing contemporary sen- 
timent, which held that the protections to liberty 
incorporated in the constitution were subject to 
an implied exception, and might rightfully be set 
aside when great emergencies required it. 

Many such things are inseparable from a state 
of civil war ; and they are recorded afterwards 
not so much for the purpose of fixing the respon- 
sibility for them upon individuals, as to guard 
against their being accepted as lawful, and thereby 
leading to mischief in the future. But in this 
connection they are to be noted also as accounting 



CENTRALIZING INFLUENCES. 353 

in some degree for the rapid strengthening of 
federal power while the war was in progress. A 
violation of the constitution, even when disap- 
proved by public sentiment so that it fails to be- 
come a precedent, may nevertheless have impor- 
tant influence upon the public mind, in accustoming 
it to accept as quite in order other questionable 
acts which before would have been promptly con- 
demned. A wholly baseless claim vigorously in- 
sisted upon, especially when the power of present 
enforcement exists, may be as likely in public 
affairs as in private business to lead to compromise 
by concession of some part of what is claimed. 

But the centralizing forces which raised no ques- 
tion of constitutional right or authority were now 
powerful. The government was making vast mili- 
tary expenditures ; it was giving out enormous 
contracts in which the profits might be large, and 
the birds of ill omen gathered about the depart- 
ments in great flocks, as eager for their feasts and 
as reckless of anything else as the vultures upon 
the fields of battle. The government was all the 
while drawing in and paying out large sums of 
money ; and the financial currents were to and 
from Washington, not to or from the state capi- 
tals except as the states were acting as subordi- 
nate auxiliaries in the war. With a new admin- 
istration, according to the vicious custom still 
prevalent, came an expectation of an entire change 
in the civil force ; and from every part of the 

23 



)54 MICHIGAN. 

country men flocked to Washington demanding 
recognition of political claims, and forgot the im- 
pending peril of their country in their eagerness 
to turn others out of office and obtain their places. 
Many new offices were now necessarily created ; 
and for the time being the national government 
was the great dispenser of favors, privileges, valu- 
ible employments, and profitable contracts, whose 
executive, by a dash of the pen, was giving offices 
which gratified the ambition of a life-time, while 
heads of departments by their favors were enabling 
others to lay the foundation of enormous fortunes. 
All these things not only for the time affected the 
relative interest of the people in their state and 
national governments, but they greatly and perma- 
nently affected the imaginations of the people ; 
diminishing the states and their rights and powers 
relatively to the Union, and making them appear 
in a constitutional point of view less and less like 
sovereignties, and more and more like subordinate 
sections of a state. It was also natural while this 
process was going on, and while the needs of the 
government and the demands upon its strength 
were so great, that the people should come to look 
upon the constitution as an instrument which a 
just regard to its purpose required should be liber- 
ally construed, in order that it might accomplish 
the ends for which it was established, and that it 
should no longer be looked upon as an instrument 
in which the grants of power to the federal govern- 



SLAVERY AND THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT. 355 

ment must be found expressed ; as even Marshall, 
the great expounder of the preceding generation, 
had conceded was the case. The attempt of states 
to break up the Union had put everything at stake 
in a life and death struggle on the battle-field. 
For all these reasons a rapid and very radical 
change was going on in respect to the view to 
be taken of the constitution ; so that even when 
the letter remained unchanged, the change in spirit 
and practical expression made it almost a new in- 
strument. 

Nothing in this regard affected the imaginations 
of the people more than the destruction of the in- 
stitution of slavery in a considerable portion of 
the Union by executive proclamation enforced by 
the army. It had been from the first agreed by all 
schools of constitutional construction that the fed- 
eral government had no power over the institution 
of slavery in the states, except in the matter of 
the reclamation of fugitives, or perhaps as slaves 
became the subject of interstate commerce. The 
states, by the constitution, had been left to regulate 
their own domestic institutions in their own way ; 
that of master and servant as much as that of mar- 
riage. But Mr. John Quincy Adams had advanced 
the idea, which at the time appeared to most per- 
sons unworth}'^ a moment's serious thought, that 
the fact would be otherwise in time of war ; for 
the general government might then deal with slav- 
ery as any existing emergency might seem to re- 



856 MICHIGAN. 

quire. The people of the United States would 
have scouted this notion even at the time of the 
breaking out of the civil war, and the most of them 
for a year thereafter. The conservative portion of 
the people, including Mr. Lincoln himself, showed 
a readiness to avoid as far as possible anything 
which could injure the institution of slavery, and 
even the army was for a time to some extent made 
use of for sustaining it. But the time speedily 
came when it seemed that it might become neces- 
sary to choose between slavery and the Union ; and 
with the supreme purpose in view to save the 
Union, the effect upon slavery began to be dis- 
cussed chiefly in its bearings upon the accomplish- 
ment of that purpose. Mr. Lincoln in his open 
letter to Horace Greeley, written in August, 1862, 
put in a few epigrammatic sentences his policy 
and purpose at that time. 

"I would," he said, "save the Union. I would 
save it in the shortest way under the constitution. 
The sooner the national authority can be restored, 
the sooner the Union will be ' the Union as it 
was.' If there be those who would not save the 
Union unless they could at the same time save 
slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be 
those who would not save the Union unless they 
could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not 
agree with them. My paramount object is to save 
the Union, and not either to save or destroy slav- 
ery. If I could save the Union without freeing 



CONGRESS AND THE CURRENCY. 357 

any slave I would do it ; if I could save it by free- 
ing all the slaves I would do it ; and if I could 
save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, 
I would also do that. What I do about slavery 
and the colored race I do because I believe it helps 
to save this Union ; and what I forbear I forbear 
because I do not believe it would help to save the 
Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe 
what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do 
more whenever I believe doing more will help the 
cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown 
to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast 
as they shall appear to be true views." 

It will thus be seen that the question in Mr. 
Lincoln's mind, how slavery should be dealt with, 
had become one of mere expediency ; and when 
he decided, as he shortly did, that the destruction 
of slavery would conduce to the restoration of the 
Union, he gave the fatal blow. It may have been 
an act of questionable constitutional right, but it 
was irreversible when done, and it went a long 
way in strengthening the growing impression that 
in time of war whatever in government is found 
expedient must be legally admissible. 

Then Congress undertook — what it had never 
attempted before — to provide the whole currency 
of the country. It had power by the constitution 
to coin money ; but coin had always constituted 
a small percentage of the whole currency, the 
most of which had been the bills of state banks. 



358 MICHIGAN. 

Twice a national bank had been chartered as an 
expedient agency in government, but the consti- 
tutional power had always been contested, and, 
though aflBrmed by the judicial, had been denied 
at last by the political departments of the govern- 
ment under the lead of Jackson, and the judg- 
ment of the people might be said to stand recorded 
against the judgment of the court. But now Con- 
gress assumed to give corporate powers not to one 
national bank merely, but to banks in every quar- 
ter of the country, sufficient in number for all the 
demands of business ; and the question of power 
to do so was scarcely made in any quarter. Con- 
gress did not stop at authorizing national banks ; 
it undertook to destroy the state banks to make 
place for them. It was not claimed or pretended 
by any one that this might be done directly and 
avowedly ; for state power to create banks of 
issue was unquestionable, and what the states had 
lawful power to create. Congress could not have 
lawful power to destroy. If the state banks were 
destroyed it must therefore be done by indirection ; 
the purpose must not be avowed even though it 
might be evident and palpable. Chief Justice 
Marshall had said, in overruling state taxation of 
the national bank, that " a power to tax is a power 
to destroy ; " meaning and intending by this epi- 
grammatic phrase, that the power to raise a rev- 
enue from a subject might require to be exercised 
over and over again to the degree of absolute ex- 



PROHIBITION UNDER GUISE OF TAXATION. 359 

haustion. But Congress availed itself of the ex- 
pression, and by its action said in substance, " We 
desire to destroy state banks of issue ; we have the 
power to tax them and we will put forth that power 
for their destruction. We will impose upon their 
circulation a burden under the name of tax which 
it will be impossible for it to bear, and thus compel 
withdrawal." The obvious comment upon this 
is, that the power to tax is a power to raise rev- 
enue, existing in government for that purpose 
and for no other ; and this legislation was not 
adopted for purposes of revenue, for no revenue 
was expected or desired from it. The law, there- 
fore, was not a tax law, but in its essence it was a 
law prohibiting under penalty the issue of bills by 
state banks. The legislation was made to assume 
the form and take the name of taxation, because 
under its true name its adoption would confessedly 
have been incompetent. A further very obvious 
comment is, that if one class of state corpora- 
tions may constitutionally be thus legislated out 
of existence by Congress, that body must have the 
like power to destroy at pleasure other state cor- 
porations ; and it might perhaps, on some view of 
national expediency, tax out of existence all cor- 
porations for insurance purposes except such as 
Congress itself might charter for the District of 
Columbia and other territories and places within 
its exclusive jurisdiction ; thus taking to itself 
this whole subject as completely as if control over 



360 MICHIGAN. 

it had been expressly conferred. This would be 
making the power given to Congress for the pur- 
poses of revenue a power of destruction irrespec- 
tive of revenue. But the tendencies of the times 
were such that the legislation was sustained with 
little question and less opposition. The feeling 
was general that the country was well rid of state 
bank bills which in times past had been infinitely 
mischievous, and nobody troubled himself with 
the question whether a dangerous precedent was 
not being established in the process of getting rid 
of them. 

The government also issued bills of its own, 
and declared that they should be legal tender as 
between individuals ; not merely for such debts as 
should be thereafter contracted, but for preexist- 
ing debts contracted when gold and silver alone 
were legal tender. Then came the question, 
Whence did the government derive the power to 
give this effect to the evidences of its own indebt- 
edness? It is not to be found expressly con- 
ferred by the constitution : there is nothing in the 
debates of the convention which framed that in- 
strument indicating a purpose to confer it. Leg- 
islators and lawyers looking for it in the constitu- 
tion suggest that it may be referred to the power 
to borrow money, or the power to coin money, or 
to some other specified power ; but at any rate it 
may be referred to the war power, which is so 
tremendous in its scope that those wielding it can 



JURISDICTION OF FEDERAL COURTS. 361 

alone set bounds to it. If in their opinion the is- 
sue of legal tender currency is a necessary expedi- 
ent when war puts the existence of the Union in 
peril, then the issue must be as lawful as the em- 
ployment of men or artillery in the field. Such 
was the reasoning of many at the time. But when 
it is once determined that the power of Congress 
may be grounded in necessity, it logically follows 
that it cannot be limited to the time of war. The 
necessity that makes for itself the law, knows no 
times ; it is conceivable that it may be slight in 
time of war and urgent in time of peace ; and 
when the groundwork of right is admitted, the 
power which passes upon the necessity cannot be 
restricted in the occasions. And necessity under 
Buch circumstances can mean only expediency. 
We thus reach a stage when Congress on its own 
view of expediency may exercise the tremendous 
power over contracts, of making them payable in 
something besides the money which the parties 
understood they were bargaining for : something 
which may or may not be of equal value ; though 
if it were of equivalent value, there could in gen- 
eral be no occasion for imparting to it the legal 
tender quality. 

The nation also during the war began to extend 
in various directions the jurisdiction of the federal 
courts. To some extent this was made necessary 
by the confiscation acts and the great increase in 
the revenue system ; but much of the legislation 



362 MICHIGAN. 

for the transfer of cases from state to federal 
courts was based on reasoning which was only- 
plausible ; and it was as often adopted for the 
purpose of increasing the number of courts and 
making desirable places to be filled by federal ap- 
pointment as for any other reason. One of the 
immediate and necessary consequences was to cast 
upon the federal Supreme Court an amount of 
business quite beyond its power to deal with, to 
the great detriment of suitors and of the country. 
Lawyers and legislators now busy themselves with 
the problem how to relieve the court of last resort, 
and various plans are suggested every one of which 
its opponents can show has fatal defects ; but the 
easy, simple, and effectual plan of retracing all 
steps which were improvidently taken, and all 
steps for which the reasons have now passed away, 
is suggested by no one. 

But that which perhaps at the time seemed 
most of all to belittle the states and to swell to 
greatest proportions the central power, was the 
process of reconstruction of states which began 
with Virginia, soon after the war opened, and was 
continued for several years. The theory of the 
government at all times was that the seceding 
states were never out of the Union : their constitu- 
tions and laws remained notwithstanding seces- 
sion ; and what was needed was that the people 
should be brought back to the performance of na- 
tional duties. But in bringing them back they 



THE TARIFF A PROTECTIVE ONE. 363 

were for a time subjected to military rule, and 
terms were dictated as conditions to their read- 
mission to their places in the Union. The most 
important of these conditions were the distinct 
negation of slavery and the elevation of the freed- 
men to the dignity of citizens and voters. Giving 
the elective franchise to the freedmen was a great 
and confessedly a hazardous experiment, and few 
if any of the states would willingly have consented 
to it ; but the country was supposed to be still in 
the grasp of an imperious necessity, and the states 
had no choice but to accept the terms. The blacks 
had been freed, and now they must be protected ; 
and the best and only effectual means of self-pro- 
tection seemed to be the ballot. As the constitu- 
tion had not contemplated the extraordinary cir- 
cumstances in which the country was now placed, 
and therefore had not provided for them, recon- 
struction presented a problem in legislation which 
was unique, and, as the power of Congress was 
irresistible, its judgment upon the problem was 
necessarily final. 

The war made heavy taxes a necessity ; and the 
government, following its ordinary course, raised 
these for the most part as indirect taxes. In so 
far as they were levied upon imports, the levy 
afforded opportunity to discriminate for the pro- 
tection and encouragement of American products. 
The heavy tariff thus became in large degree a 
protective tariff. When the war was over, a fear- 



364 MICHIGAN. 

fill load of national debt remained, and tlie war 
taxes were continued for the gradual extinguish- 
ment of this debt. But when the debt had so far 
diminished that the heavy taxes could no longer 
be defended on that ground, the protected inter- 
ests were found to be so numerous and so power- 
ful, that they were quite able to prevent success in 
any attempt at considerable reduction. The tariff 
thus became distinctively a tariff for protection ; 
and all the protected interests looked to the fed- 
eral government as being at once, to some extent 
at least, the source and the protector of their pros- 
perity. 

It will be interesting now to note the position 
of Michigan relative to this form of taxation. For 
this purpose the year 1880 may be taken, up to 
which time the heavy taxes had been maintained. 

Michigan had now become, in all that goes to 
the making of great states, conspicuous and power- 
ful in the Union. From having been the twenty- 
sixth State at the time of admission, it has now 
in point of population become the ninth. In 
wealth, prosperity, and promise, it is entitled to 
still higher rank. Only New York, Pennsylvania, 
Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Connecticut, and 
New Jersey have more capital invested in manu- 
factures ; only Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio produce 
more wheat ; only Ohio, California, and Texas 
raise more sheep. In the production of iron ore 
and copper, and in the manufacture of salt and 



NATIONALITY FOSTERED BY PROTECTION. 365 

lumber, Michigan is preeminent in the Union, and 
the shipments from its mines and forests deter- 
mine the markets for the country. The State 
has thus become a grand and noble common- 
wealth ; the little settlement so weak and so far 
in the wilderness when Cass was sent to govern 
and foster it, has grown to mighty dimensions. 
Its agriculture is excellent ; its manufactures are 
greatly diversified and generally profitable ; its 
channels of commerce are all that can be desired ; 
its people are intelligent, hardy, industrious, and 
thrifty, and in natural resources it is unsurpassed 
by any state. State pride may surely find ample 
gratification in the contemplation of so magnifi- 
cent a presentation of happy circumstances. 

But some of the facts which have been named 
are calculated, while the protective system is con- 
tinued, to concentrate the attention upon the na- 
tion rather than upon the State. The pine for- 
ests of Michigan, which challenge comparison 
with any in the world, border upon lakes and riv- 
ers which furnish easy avenues to market. But 
only a few miles away, Canada, also, has vast for- 
ests quite as favorably situated for transportation 
to market, and the Canadian lumberman would 
compete successfully with the lumberman of Mich- 
igan at every leading mart in the country, if he 
were suffered to do so on equal terms. If, there- 
fore, other manufacturers are to be favored by 
discriminating duties, the manufacturers of lum- 



366 MICHIGAN. 

ber may point to the contiguity of their competi- 
tors as constituting a reason for favoring them, 
also, in like manner. 

Whether for the permanent interest of the State 
it is best that the lumber interest should be thus 
favored, is a question about which the owners of 
forests and mills will not very much concern them- 
selves. Protective duties enable them more quickly 
and more profitably to convert their forests into 
money, and they therefore favor them. But the 
duties operate as a premium to a speedy conver- 
sion of that which, in its natural condition, is yearly 
growing more and more valuable ; and perhaps if 
Canada were suffered for the time being to supply 
in part the American market, the permanent in- 
terest of the State would be subserved thereby. 
But when wealth is coming in, every one wishes 
" the golden stream " to be " quick and violent." 

The salt manufacture of Michigan finds its chief 
competition in New York, and cannot be pro- 
tected against it. But the same duty on foreign 
salt which would favor the manufacture in New 
York would favor it in Michigan ; and, though the 
interest needs no protection to make it remuner- 
ative, being generally profitable without, yet as 
the business employs a considerable number of 
men, and protective duties are supposed to foster 
labor and increase its compensation, the reasons 
for protection to salt are the same which siipport 
protection in the case of many other industries. 



SELF-INTEREST ENCOURAGES PROTECTION. 367 

It perhaps goes without saying that the iron 
interest will be favored by protective duties if any 
is ; and the protection when compared with others 
has generally gone to the verge of liberality. Of 
the copper mines of Michigan, one has been the 
most productive and profitable on the globe ; and, 
if that alone were to be considered, protective du- 
ties for the purpose of adding to the already enor- 
mous profits would seem monstrous ; but many 
other mines have never made fairly remunerative 
returns, and their abandonment might be a neces- 
sity unless copper also received some degree of 
protection. 

Great quantities of cheap foreign wools are im- 
ported into this country, and the impression is 
common, if not general, among the wool growers of 
the United States that these coarse wools so far 
compete with the finer and higher priced wools of 
this country as to affect the price. Whether this 
impression is true or false, it has had its influence 
upon sheep growers in inducing them to demand 
protection, and upon Congress in acceding to the 
demand. 

And so these great leading Michigan interests, 
of lumber, salt, iron, copper, and wool, to say noth- 
ing of many less important interests which are 
also favored by protective duties, have sufficed to 
rank the State with those favoring the protective 
system, and, while influencing the political course 
of the people, to make them feel at the same time 



368 MICHIGAN. 

that very much of the prosperity of the State was 
dependent not upon what the State could do to 
foster and protect them, but upon what could be 
done and was being done by the general govern- 
ment. 

The superabundant revenue that has come to 
the government as a result of heavy taxation has 
made Congress over-liberal in the matter of ex- 
penditure. Schemes of doubtful public utility have 
easily found support ; proper national works have 
readily obtained extravagant appropriations ; and 
sometimes it has seemed that money was voted 
without discrimination, so many of the persons 
who cast the votes appearing to look for the 
benefit in the tax from which the money came, 
rather than in the purpose which was to be accom- 
plished by its expenditure. 

The geographical position of Michigan is such 
that the State has had an interest quite as great 
in the expenditure of the moneys realized from 
protective duties as in the duties themselves. 
With its two peninsulas it has, in proportion to 
area, a longer coast line of navigable water than 
any other state. The rivers St. Clair and St. Mary 
are great national highways, but the passage of 
the one is impeded by shallows, and that of the 
other by rapids, and a considerable expenditure of 
money has been necessary to make safe and suffi- 
cient channels for commerce. The State has nu- 
merous other rivers flowing from the interior with 



THE INFLUENCE OF PENSIONS. 369 

harbors at their mouths, some of them of large 
importance, and some that only the most optimis- 
tic could see value in ; but such of them as are 
important have needed improvement, and in the 
river and harbor bills Michigan has been able on 
plausible claims to secure extensive recognition, 
and the claims have been allowed to an extent 
that has seldom left ground for complaint. And 
to every locality that has received a grant from 
the general government, the grant has somehow 
seemed like a mere gift, as if in some providential 
way the money had come to the national treasury 
without cost to the people, and the nation was 
distributing it in benefactions. The State would 
be powerless to make such benefactions except at 
a cost of direct taxes ; and the people of the State 
would never assent to the levy of taxes for such 
purposes. In fact, they have prohibited it by their 
constitution. 

An overflowing national treasury has also en- 
couraged liberal pensions, and gradual additions 
to the classes of pensioners, until the number of 
persons dependent upon the nation for bounty of 
this nature has become enormous. The coinci- 
dence of interest between these classes and those 
in whose behalf heavy taxes are laid seems direct 
and close ; and the more their number is increased, 
and the greater their interest, the more in their 
minds is the nation elevated, and made continually 
present as an entity of power and importance at 
the expense of the State. 

24 



870 MICHIGAN. 

The nation lias also since the war made gifts of 
vast areas of land for the construction of railroads, 
and loaned large sums of money which might al- 
most as well have been made gifts. It has added 
to its postal service something of an express busi- 
ness, which has within it the prophecy of greater 
things to come. The question of annexing the 
telegraph to the postal service is being urged, and 
the question of the nation assuming the regulation 
of railways has for some time been before Con- 
gress, and is certam to receive at some time in the 
near future an affirmative solution. 

Then the number of federal office-holders has 
increased until they constitute a mighty army : 
an army greater in number than that with which 
Wellington at Waterloo changed the history of 
the world ; greater than that with which Meade 
won the decisive victory at Gettysburg in the cri- 
sis of the civil war. It has been deemed necessary 
to legislate to prevent elections from being im- 
properly influenced by the labors and pecuniary 
contributions of so large a body, directed and ex- 
pended as they are likely to be by the political 
machinery of the party in power. 

After all these important changes, these great 
additions to federal power, federal activity, federal 
beneficence to individuals and localities, and fed- 
eral agencies and servants, it needs scarcely be 
said that it is not state action and state legisla- 
tion that most attract attention, even when the 



THE UNION THAT IS TO BE. 371 

citizen in the quiet of his own home or in neigh- 
borhood gatherings is discussing public affairs. 
Everything gravitates to Washington ; the highest 
interests and the most absorbing ambitions look 
to the national capital for gratification ; and it is 
no longer the state but the nation that in men's 
minds and imaginations is an ever present sover- 
eignty. And this is as true of the states of which 
Jefferson and Calhoun have been the idols as it is 
of Massachusetts or Michigan. 

" The constitution as it is and the Union as it 
was " can no longer be the motto and the watch- 
word of any political party. We may preserve 
the constitution in its every phrase and every let- 
ter, with only such modification as was found es- 
sential for the uprooting of slavery ; but the Union 
as it was has given way to a new Union with some 
new and grand features, but also with some en- 
grafted evils which only time and the patient and 
persevering labors of statesmen and patriots will 
suffice to eradicate. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

MICHIGAN IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 

The opening of the twentieth century finds the 
State of Michigan practically out of debt; and the 
settled policy of the people in municipal as well as 
state affairs is to bear to-day the burdens of the 
hour, rather than to mortgage the future, which will 
have its own imperative needs in ever increasing 
ratio. Nor has this rule prevented the State from 
maii)taining a foremost position in education, in 
charities, in improved reformatory and penal sys- 
tems, and along those other lines which mark an 
advancing civilization. For example, of the half 
million dollars and more that make up the income 
of the state University, more than three fifths of 
the amount come from direct taxation ; and a mil- 
lion and a half of dollars are annually distributed 
among the counties towards the support of primary 
education. To the many charitable institutions 
has been added recently a home for the feeble- 
minded and epileptic, which now accommodates five 
hundred inmates. 

During the past quarter-century certain marked 
changes have taken place in the economic develop- 



SEARCHES FOR COPPER. 373 

ment of the State ; there have been gains and losses ; 
new industries have been developed, and the era of 
concentration has had its effects. The changes in 
the production of copper, iron, and lumber, which 
form the chief industries of Michigan, call for 
particular attention. 

Before history began on the Western Hemi- 
sphere, the predecessors of the Indians came from 
the south to Lake Superior for copper. Such was 
their degree of expertness as miners, that on the site 
of the Minnesota mine they lifted a copper mass 
weighing six tons, supporting it on a cob work frame 
of wood five feet in height ; and at the Mesnard 
mine they moved a boulder of eighteen tons forty- 
eight feet from its original bed. Springing from 
the ddbris covering these ancient pits, have been 
found hemlock trees having annual rings showing 
that they began to grow nearly half a century be- 
fore the coming of Columbus. The Indians were 
never miners ; but the float pieces of copper which 
they found and gave to French explorers and mis- 
sionaries induced the Intendant Talon to dispatch 
Joliet to the great lake in search of copper de- 
posits. Neither the French nor the English, ^ how- 
ever, achieved success in the quest. In 1819, 
Governor Cass, while making the first explorations 
in the Lake Superior region undertaken by the 
United States government, turned aside to visit 

1 Alexander Henry's Travels and Adventures in Canada, 1809, 
p. 231. 



374 MICHIGAN. 

the then famous copper rock lying in the bed of 
the Ontonagon River. After many futile attempts 
this boulder was removed in 1843, and comprised 
the first shipment of copper from the Lake region. 
The government, however, laid claim to the rock, 
and it now reposes in an obscure corner of the Na- 
tional Museum at Washington. i 

Public attention was called to the mineral riches 
of the upper peninsula by the reports of Dr. 
Douglass Houghton, who, in order to accomplish a 
geological survej'" for which there was no appro- 
priation, had taken the contract to make linear sur- 
veys for the general government. Within a few 
months after the publication of Dr. Houghton's 
first report in 1841, Fort Wilkins at Copper Har- 
bor was thronged with prospectors and explorers 
eager to gain a War Department permit to occupy 
mineral lands. Nine hundred and sixty such 
permits were speedily granted. One mine on 
Keweenaw Point produced i-eturns in twenty-two 
years, of over two thousand per cent, on the invest- 
ment ; while from a mine in the Ontonagon region 
a single mass of pure copper of nearly a million 
pounds in weight sold for more than $200,000. 
Unhappily the vast majority of the claims turned 
out to be simply pits in which fortunes were sunk ; 
and the usual history of mining ventures was re- 
peated in the Lake Superior region. More than 
half the copper produced in Michigan now comes 

1 Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1895, pp. 1021-1030. 



TEE COPPER PRODUCT. 375 

from the Calumet and Hecla properties on Kewee- 
naw point. This rugged peninsula juts into Lake 
Superior about midway along its southern shore. 
From the great lake on the north, a government 
ship canal now occupies the route of the portage 
that Radisson found well traveled in 1661. From 
the canal vessels pass into the red waters of Por- 
tage Lake, its deep basin shut in by high hills 
from whose precipitous sides the cities of Hancock 
and Houghton face each other. In summer the 
mid-day heat scorches the scanty vegetation of the 
narrow valley ; in winter the frequent snows are 
whirled through the narrow gorge by winds that 
cut like knives, while the mercury shrinks into a 
solid ball. Such is the heart of the copper country 
— a region always gloomy, but never grand. The 
Calumet and Hecla vein, discovered in 1861, after 
eight years of search by Edwin Hulbert,^ was un- 
til 1876 the largest producer of copper in the 
world ; and even now is without an equal as a pro- 
fitable mining property. Each year it can be made 
to yield ninety million pounds of copper, so tough 
and so free from arsenic as to make it unrivaled 
as a conductor of electricity. Ore containing only 
from three to four per cent, of pure copper, is 
mined a mile or more under ground, is separated 
from the rock in vast stamp-mills, is cast into in- 
gots, and put upon the world's markets at a profit. 

1 " The Copper Conglomerate," a series of letters by E. J. Hul- 
bert, repriuted from the Ontonagon Miner, 1893. 



376 MICHIGAN. 

Until 1876, the Michigan mines produced ninety 
per cent, of the copper output of the United States; 
now they yield but twenty-five per cent. Yet 
while the relative product is smaller, the number 
of pounds in the output is on the increase ; new 
mines are being discovered, and old ones are being 
reopened with improved machinery. 

On September 19, 1844, one of Dr. Hough- 
ton's surveying parties, under the leadership of 
William A. Burt, was engaged in running town- 
ship lines and making geological observations be- 
tween the Chocolate and the Carp rivers in Mar- 
quette County. On reaching the hills south of 
Teal Lake, the compass-man noticed decided fluc- 
tuations in the variations of the magnetic needle. 
The party was using the solar compass, which Mr. 
Burt had then but recently invented, and when 
the needle began to traverse several degrees south 
of west, the excited inventor exclaimed, " Now, 
boys, look around to see what you can find." 
Eagerly the surveyors scattered for the hunt, re- 
turning with specimens of iron ore gathered from 
the out-crop. Tales of the marvelous richness 
of the iron deposits quickly spread through the 
lower peninsula, and the next year citizens of 
Jackson organized a company and put an explor- 
ing party in the field. Reaching the site of the 
present city of Marquette, they started inland 
under the guidance of Marji Gesick, a sub-chief 
of the Chippewas. On reaching the spot where 



DISCOVERY OF IRON ORE. 377 

the Burt party had discovered traces of iron ore, 
they found a high hill sloping to the north, and 
at its base and along its sides was an outcrop 
of the finest quality of gray granular iron ore, 
standing out to view like a quarry of granite. 
Having located, under the Federal statutes, a 
mining claim one mile square, they built a forge 
to test the ores ; but so unsuccessful were the first 
ventures that until 1861 the entire shipments of 
iron ore from Lake Superior did not reach one 
hundred tons a year. From the Jackson, however, 
nearly four million tons of ore were taken before 
the mine was worked out ; and when recourse must 
be had to low grade ores, this original mine prom- 
ises again to assume leading importance. 

The iron region of Michigan now occupies the 
western half of the upper peninsula and comprises 
the Marquette, the Menominee, and the Gogebic 
ranges. On the Marquette range, the workings 
of the Barnum mine lie directly under the main 
streets of Ishpeming, whose citizens, transported 
in steam and electric cars, and busy with their 
daily vocations, give small heed to the fact that 
hundreds of feet beneath them is yet another 
city with electric lights burning incessantly, and 
with regular streets crowded with electric cars 
and thronged with busy miners. Forty miles south 
of the Marquette range is the Menominee iron 
region, whose famous Chapin mine, during the 
twelve years following its opening in 1880, pro- 



378 MICHIGAN. 

duced sufficient ore to load a train of cars that 
would reach from Chicago to New York City. In 
the Gogebic range, on the extreme west, the Nor- 
rie was first among iron mines to attain a record 
of a million tons ; and in 1900 the iron production 
of Michigan reached ten million tons. Stupendous 
as are these figures, they are excelled by those of 
the Vermillion and Mesaba ranges in Minnesota, 
from the latter of which, in 1900, nearly eight 
million tons of ore were taken from the surface of 
the ground by steam-shovels. The Michigan pro- 
duct, however, being hard ore, is essential for mix- 
ing with the soft friable ores of the Mesaba range, 
in order to make the latter work well in the fur- 
nace ; and while, for the time being, Minnesota 
may claim a greater production, when the not dis- 
tant day comes to resort to lower grades of ores 
and to delve under ground, the enormous deposits 
in Michigan will probably restore to our State the 
old-time supremacy. 

The development of the iron industry has con- 
centrated the ownership of the properties in few 
hands. The members of the Standard Oil combina- 
tion, with seemingly unlimited means at command, 
began to acquire ore properties, to build railroads 
to the ore-fields, to operate lines of steamships, and 
finally to monopolize the iron industry of the coun- 
try, until to-day the United States Steel Corpora- 
tion controls the market. Such is the econom)'- of 
working, that the ore is handled but twice from 



ECONOMY IN IRON PRODUCTION. 379 

the mine of Lake Superior to the pig-iron of Penn- 
sylvania, machinery and gravity performing the 
other operations. From mine to market the own- 
ership is not changed. Economy is studied so 
closely that he who discovers a means of saving a 
cent a ton in ore pi'oduction increases profits by 
$200,000 a year. Consequently, the highest sala- 
ries are paid to an army of explorers and scientific 
men engaged in the work of the great corporation. 
Steadiness of production, also, has been gained by 
concentration, and the labor market is no longer 
subject to violent fluctuations alternating between 
feast and famine. A few independent corporations, 
like the Cleveland Cliffs Company, have been able 
by superior management and the possession of 
valuable properties to maintain themselves, and 
even to wax strong. What the Calumet and Hecla 
is to the copper country, the Cleveland Cliffs is to 
the iron region, — a beneficent institution conserv- 
ing its properties, putting into operation plans for 
the preservation of natural beauties and the re- 
forestation of its lands, and developing among its 
army of employes a sense of loyalty to the com- 
pany. 

It is not altogether comforting to state pride 
that the vast mineral wealth of Michigan is owned 
and operated by corporations having their head 
offices in Boston, New York, and other cities of the 
east. From these mines the State derives only a 
comparatively meagre revenue ; and such is the 



380 MICHIGAN. 

solidarity of the Lake Superior mining interests 
that low valuations have been the rule. In fact, 
the upper peninsula has always been treated as a 
region quite by itself. Its population is composed 
largely of Swedes and Finns ; its wealth is concen- 
trated in the hands of a few corporations and their 
representatives ; and its soil is but slowly and par- 
tially coming under cultivation. In matters politi- 
cal there are certain offices and positions which go 
to that district as a matter of course; no other 
single congressional district is so largely influential 
in the affairs of the State. 

The slowness of the early development of the 
Lake Superior mines, both iron and copper, and the 
remarkable production in the years since 1860, are 
explained generally by the rapid progress which 
this country made after the Civil War, and the 
consequent demand for materials of all kinds ; and 
in particular by the building of the canal and locks 
to overcome the barrier to navigation formed by the 
rapids of Sault St. Marie. Shortly before the 
year 1800, the British Fur Trading Company con- 
structed, on the Canadian side of the river, a sluice- 
way for the passage of their batteaux •} but during 
the war of 1812 a force of United States soldiers 
demolished the locks and burned every building in 
the vicinity. In his first message. Governor Mason 
urged the necessity of a canal, for he saw clearly 

1 The little old lock now performs the part of a fountain in the 
Lake Superior Corporation grounds. 



ST. MARY'S SHIP CANAL. 381 

that without such a waterway the gift of the upper 
peninsula would be valueless to Michigan. The 
legislature appropriated $50,000 for the work, but 
when, in 1839, the contractors began operations 
by filling a mill-race on the military reservation, a 
company of regulars from Fort Brady drove the 
laborers ofiE. In vain the legislature protested to 
Congress against the outrage; and Senator Nor- 
vell's bill making a grant of government land to 
aid in the construction of a canal was defeated 
largely by reason of Henry Clay's speech, in which 
he referred to the rapids of Sault Ste. Marie as 
" beyond the remotest settlement in the United 
States, if not in the moon." In 1852, after sixteen 
years of importunity. Congress gave to Michigan 
public lands to the value of $750,000 to aid in 
building a canal with locks to be at least 250 feet 
long, 12 feet deep, and 50 feet wide. Michigan, 
as was then believed, lacked the constitutional 
power to grant charters to construction companies. 
Therefore, an organization, with a capital stock 
of one million dollars, was effected at Albany, 
N. Y., and work began on June 2, 1853. In twenty- 
two months the canal was constructed at a cost of 
$875,000, being within the estimates both as to 
time and expense. At the date of its completion, 
the lock was the largest in the world ; it was built 
on the outskirts of civilization ; the machinery for 
submarine excavation was invented on the spot, 
and all adjacent Canada was scoured on snow-shoes 



382 MICHIGAN. 

by men in search of blacksmiths' bellows for use 
in making forgings. The blasting-powder came 
from Connecticut and Delaware ; the laborers were 
immigrants sent in gangs from New York City ; 
the nearest telegraph station was at Detroit, 450 
miles away ; and much of the work was done in 
winter with the mercury often at 35° below zero, 
and with only eight hours of daylight. When 
the cold became intense a man was stationed at 
each runway, and as often as he saw a face frost- 
bitten he would rub it with snow until circulation 
was restored, so that the barrowman need not leave 
his work. Several enormous fortunes were made 
from the sale of the canal lands, and there is a 
case on record where an Englishman invested 
$100,000 in the Company's stock and in twenty 
years received $500,000 as a part of his reward. 
In 1881 the canal was transferred to the Federal 
government, and the same year the Weitzel lock, 
constructed by the United States at a cost of 
$2,180,000, was opened. The State lock continued 
to be operated until 1886, when the government 
began to construct the Poe lock, now the largest 
in the world, with a length of 800 feet, a width of 
100 feet, and a depth of 21 feet. Within its gran- 
ite sides vessels 540 feet in length and carrying 
10,000 tons of freight are lifted in eight minutes 
from the level of Lake Huron to that of Lake 
Superior. In the two American locks, supple- 
mented by the one constructed by the Canadian 



LAKE WATERWAYS. 383 

government, ninety vessels a day on the average 
are passed, and during the seven months of the 
navigation season, one eighth of the commerce of 
the United States goes through St. Mary's River. 
Canadian or American, each vessel in its turn, 
■without discrimination as to nationality or the 
payment of a penny in tolls, glides into the great 
stone pit, is silently lifted or lowered, and goes 
its way. 

To supplement the improvements at the rapids, 
the government has straightened the tortuous 
channel of the St. Mary's River, by cutting through 
islands and shoals a perfectly straight course 
twenty miles long, thereby making a saving of 
eleven miles in distance, and permitting night 
navigation of the river. At St. Claire Flats, 
where La Salle's little Griffon with difficulty 
found a channel, the government has made a broad 
passageway protected by wooden walls two miles 
long ; and is now constructing a second one, so as 
to prevent collisions. Near the mouth of the De- 
troit River, also, is a long cut made by our govern- 
ment entirely in Canadian waters, for the accom- 
modation of the rapidly increasing lake commerce. 
The Great Lakes and their connecting waters, one 
thousand miles in length, have become the greatest 
internal waterway in the world. At an average 
cost of six tenths of a mill per ton a mile, the ves- 
sels on this commercial thoroughfare carry two 
fifths as much freight as do all the railroads of the 



384 MICHIGAN. 

United States, notwithstanding the fact that ice 
closes the waters from the middle of December 
until the first of April ; and this commerce might 
be increased largely by reciprocal trade relations 
with Canada, which would encourage traffic across 
as well as along the natural waterways. Michigan 
in particular would be benefited by as free trade 
with Ontario as she now enjoys with Ohio, Indi- 
ana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. 

The growth of commerce within the borders of 
the State was long delayed by lack of means of 
communication. The St. Mary's Canal indeed 
opened, during eight months of the year, a com- 
mercial highway to the upper peninsula ; but for 
the remaining four months ice locked the Straits 
of Mackinaw, so that the only means of reaching 
the towns of the Lake Superior region by rail was 
by way of Chicago and Milwaukee, a recourse nei- 
ther convenient in itself nor yet comforting to state 
pride. Indeed much of the once large and lucra- 
tive Lake Superior trade had been taken from the 
merchants of Detroit by their Chicago rivals ; and 
the upper country had begun to agitate the ques- 
tion of political independence, when, urged by both 
commercial and patriotic considerations, a num- 
ber of Detroit capitalists, headed by James Mc- 
Millan (on whom the burden of the undertaking 
afterwards devolved), formed a syndicate to build 
a railway to connect the upper peninsula with the 
lower. The work involved an international bridge 



UPPER PENINSULA RAILROADS. 385 

across the St. Mary's River to give a connection 
with Montreal by the old route of Indian mission- 
ary and explorer ; and also a means of forcing a 
winter passage across the Straits of Mackinaw, a 
distance of seven miles. This was finally accom- 
plished by means of a powerful steam car-ferry, 
with a small wheel under the bow to draw the 
water from beneath the ice while the big wheel at 
the stern forces the heavy vessel upon the broken 
ice-cakes, a principle afterwards borrowed by Rus- 
sia for like service along the Siberian railway. As 
the agricultural lands of the upper peninsula come 
into use, and the country becomes more thickly 
settled, this means of winter communication will 
become more and more important ; and since the 
connection was first made, the bonds of steel have 
been typical of the closer political relations be- 
tween the two sections of the State. It was not 
until so late as 1885, however, that the city of 
Sault St. Marie, the first settlement within the 
borders of Michigan, was reached by the rail- 
road builders, and the dog-sledge ceased to be used 
for the transportation of mails. 

Within the past decade the waters of Lake Su- 
perior have been tamed and put to the service of 
manufacture. An American company first opened 
a short canal on the Canadian side of St. Mary's 
Rapids, developing twenty thousand electric horse- 
power ; and afterwards the same corporation, suc- 
ceeding where others had failed, constructed 
25 



386 MICHIGAN. 

through the American town of Sault St. Marie a 
canal, three and a half miles in length and two 
hundred feet in width ; and at its outlet built a 
power-house, capable of developing forty thousand 
electric horse-power. At the same time the level 
of Lake Superior is preserved for traffic by a sys- 
tem of automatic compensating-works in the nature 
of a partial dam placed at the head of the rapids, 
— a method which probably will come into use 
throughout the Lakes, to maintain for commerce 
levels disturbed by deepened channels. Evidently 
the day is not far distant when the greatest of fresh 
water lakes will become but a vast mill-pond, and 
the leaping waters of the Saidt will be a beauty 
passed away. 

When settlers first came to Michigan, their 
greatest enemy was the trees that kept the sun 
from the lands. To clear the fertile acres it was 
necessary to fell the great oaks and maples, and 
the superb trees of beech, walnut, and ash ; and 
because there was no market for lumber and no 
mills in the interior, burning and burying were 
resorted to as means of extermination. Although 
lumber mills were in operation along the Detroit 
and St. Clair rivers long before the Americans 
took possession of Michigan, yet so late as 1854 
there were in the whole State only sixty-one mills 
in operation, and the annual product was scarcely 
more than a hundred million feet, most of which 
came from the Snginaw valley. Among the settlers 



THE LUMBER INDUSTRY. 387 

who came to Michigan about the time the State 
was admitted to the Union, many were reared on 
the banks of the Kennebec or the Merrimac; and 
their experienced eyes quickly saw in the white 
pine that covered more than half of the lower 
peninsula, the opportunity to make large fortunes. 
Buying great tracts of this pine at government 
prices or at a small advance, these far-seeing ones 
quietly bided their time ; and when the cities of 
the west began to build themselves up, Michigan's 
forests fell at the rate of thirty-three thousand 
acres a year, yielding in 1871 two and a half bil- 
lion feet of sawed pine, and increasing the output 
to over three and three-quarters billion feet in 1892. 
On each side of the State, the refuse from the 
lumber mills was used to evaporate salt brine, 
until in the production of both lumber and salt 
Michigan came to lead all other States ; a suprem- 
acy that, so far as lumber is concerned, has now 
passed to Wisconsin. 

In 1889, the State of Michigan placed in the 
Capitol at Washington a statue of Lewis Cass, 
thus setting its seal upon his work and worth. 
The successor of Cass in political power and influ- 
ence was Zachariah Chandler. Judge Cooley has 
left on record a comparison of the two men : — 

Mr. Chandler was a merchant of Detroit, and like 
his predecessor, a native of New Hampshire. He had 
strong native sense, easily adapted himself to all classes 



388 MICHIGAN. 

of men and all grades of society, was quick in decision, 
fearless in action, uncompromising in principle, and in- 
flexible in purpose. . . . He was less learned, courtly, 
and polished than his predecessor ; he knew much less 
of literature and history, of foreign countries and our 
relations to them ; but he resembled Governor Cass in 
integrity and thrift, while in his nature he was far more 
combative and persistent. When the time came for the 
life and death struggle of the nation, no defiance rang 
out clearer and stronger ; no courage was less doubtful 
of results ; no vote was more unhesitatingly or more 
emphatically given for radical measures than were those 
of Zachariah Chandler. For twelve years he spoke the 
voice of the State in the Senate, and on the main ques- 
tions of the day his utterances were never of doubtful 
import.^ 

The mantle of political leadership in Michigan, 
dropping from the shoulders of the dead Chandler 
in 1875, came to be worn easily by James McMil- 
lan, a Canadian by birth, but a resident of Michigan 
after he reached the age of seventeen. Lewis Cass 
represented the exploration and settlement of the 
northwest ; Zachariah Chandler was the war spirit 
incarnate ; and James McMillan typified the age 
of commercial development. Mr. McMillan's first 
success was as a builder of freight-cars in Michi- 
gan and several other States ; to this he added 
the construction and operation of railways and of 
steamships, both freight and passenger; so that 

1 Semi- Centennial Addresses, 1886, p. 93. 



JAMES McMillan 389 

he became preeminently Michigan's captain of in- 
dustry. First and almost alone among the public 
men of the State in well-considered gifts to educa- 
tion and philanthropy, his unbounded energy found 
scope in every portion of the commonwealth. 
Elected to the United States Senate in 1889, he 
was twice reelected, and served until his death, in 
1902. In the long struggle for the establishment 
of the gold standard his good judgment and per- 
sistence counted largely ; in the legislation for the 
deep-water channel to connect Duluth and Chicago 
with Buffalo he had a large share ; and in the ad- 
justment of matters growing out of the Spanish 
War he bore an influential part. His most con- 
spicuous service, however, was rendered in the 
regulation of the affairs of the District of Columbia 
during the thirteen years of his senatorial service. 
The large and comprehensive plan for the improve- 
ment and beautifi cation of the national capital, 
as formulated by the Park Commission, owes to 
him its conception and beginning ; and the project 
was the culmination of labors that embraced 
every department of municipal economy in relation 
to the seat of the federal government. To the 
task he brought an intense interest in the problems 
presented, and a mastery of them ; the quiet per- 
sistence necessary to legislative success, and an 
integrity of motive recognized and appreciated in 
both houses of Congress. It was his aim to re- 
store the plan of the Federal city as outlined by 



390 MICHIGAN. 

L'Enfant under the direction of Washington and 
Jefferson, and to have that plan carried to its ulti- 
mate conclusion in a manner befitting the wealth 
and power of this nation. ^ 

Mr. McMillan's immediate predecessor in the 
Senate was Thomas Witherell Palmer, who served 
a single term, from 1883 until 1889; he then be- 
came successively minister to Spain and president 
of the Government Board of the Columbian Expo- 
sition at Chicago. Two men who had rendered 
long and conspicuous service in the House of Repre- 
sentatives were called to the Senate, — Omar D. 
Conger, who served in the last-named body from 
1877 to 1883 ; and Julius C. Burrows, elected to 
the Senate on the death of Francis B. Stockbridge, 
in 1897, and still in service, his colleague being 
Russell A. Alger, who succeeded James McMillan. 
During the first administration of President Cleve- 
land, George Van Ness Lothrop, for many years 
the leader of the Michigan bar, served as minister 
to Russia ; and Don M. Dickinson was the post- 
master-general. 

Judge Cooley has summarized the succession in 
the gubernatorial office : — 

The successor of Governor Crapo was Henry P. 
Baldwin, a native of Rhode Island, who for many years 
had been extensively engaged in business in Detroit as 
merchant, manufacturer, and banker, and won an envi- 
able reputation for ability, integrity, and liberality. He 
1 Senate Report No. 160 ; 57th Congress. 



THE GOVERNORSHIP 391 

held office for two terms, retiring at the beginning of 
1873. Succeeding him for two terms was John J. Bag- 
ley, a native of New York. In him the State had for 
executive one of those strong and vigorous characters 
who, by their native sense, business tact and ability, and 
promptitude in the performance of duty, do honor to the 
commonwealth with which they unite their fortunes. 
Many such have made their homes in Michigan, but none 
more worthy of honorable mention than John J. Bagley. 
Charles M. Croswell held office from 1877 to 1881 ; 
David H. Jerome, from 1881 to 1883 ; Josiah W. Begole 
from 1883 to 1885 ; and the latter gave place to Russell 
A. Alger [1885-1887]. Each of these gentlemen as a 
private citizen was known and respected for the energy, 
prudence, and success with which he managed his own 
business interests, and the people expected from each an 
administration of public afPairs which should be prudent, 
conscientious, and watchful, and in no instance were 
the expectations disappointed. Governors Croswell and 
Begole were natives of New York ; Governor Alger, of 
Ohio. To Governor Jerome belongs the proud distinction 
of being the first governor of Michigan who was born 
within its limits ; the true representative of those who 
were reared among its stumps and taught in its district 
schools.^ 

After serving a single term, Governor Alger 
was succeeded by Cyrus G. Luce, a representative 
of the agricultural interests, a shrewd and vigor- 
ous speaker on the stump, and a man intimately 
acquainted with the State and the management of 

^ Semi-CerUennial Addresses, 1886, p. 95. 



392 MICHIGAN. 

its institutions. During his administration a bank- 
ing law, modeled on the national statute, was sub- 
mitted to the people and adopted. Under the 
provisions of this law more than one-half of the 
commercial banking capital of the State finds in- 
vestment. Since the formation of the Republican 
party in 1854 but two of the fifteen governors of 
Michigan have been elected by the opposition ; 
Governor Begole, who has been mentioned, and 
Governor Winans, who succeeded Governor Luce, 
a result in each case due to a desire on the part of 
the Republicans to administer a rebuke to their 
own party. After a single term, Governor Winans 
was succeeded by John T. Rich, a farmer candi- 
date, who had served for a time in the National 
House of Representatives, and who, during four 
years, gave to the State an intelligent, forceful, 
and entirely practical administration. He, in turn, 
was succeeded by Hazen S. Pingree, who also 
served for two terms (1897-1901), and was suc- 
ceeded by Aaron T. Bliss. 

While the people have strenuously refused to 
make any general revision of the Constitution, they 
have yielded to changed conditions by adopting a 
number of amendments. The number of justices 
of the Supreme Court was increased to five in 1887 
and to eight in 1903, and the salaries were raised 
to $7000 per annum, with the requirement that the 
justices shall reside in Lansing. More than one 
circuit judge has been allowed to certain of the more 



CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. 393 

populous counties ; and these counties, together 
with all counties in the upper peninsula, are per- 
mitted to pay circuit judges such salaries as the 
respective boards of supervisors may determine.^ In 
1894 the salary of the governor was increased to 
$4000 ; those of the other elective state officers re- 
main at the former low figures, although four times 
amendments making general increases have been 
submitted to the people. Thus has come about 
the anomaly of the secretary of state, the land 
commissioner, and the attorney-general receiving 
a salary of but $800, while their deputies receive 
$2000 ; and the treasurer and the superintendent of 
public instruction receiving only half the salary of 
their deputies. The practical result has been gen- 
erally to make these state offices political step- 
ping stones, and in some cases to lead to a division 
of salaries within the offices. Other amendments 
provide that foreign-born electors must have been 
citizens of the United States for two years and a 
half before they can vote ; and that the legislature 
may provide for the establishment of libraries in 
each township or city, and all fines for the breach 
of penal laws must either go to the support of such 
libraries or else be used for school purposes. 
Under this latter provision local libraries have been 
developed throughout the State, and these have been 
supplemented by an excellent system of " travel- 
ing " libraries lodged in factories, schools, and other 

1 Cf. p. 302, 303. 



394 MICHIGAN. 

accessible places, the books being exchanged from 
time to time. In 1902 an amendment was adopted 
providing for indeterminate sentences, as a better- 
ment of the penal system. The provision of the Con- 
stitution prohibiting the State from being a party 
to, or interested in, any work of internal improve- 
ment was successfully invoked to prevent the city 
of Detroit from purchasing and operating the 
street railways of that city in 1900, during a 
temporary demand for the municipal ownership of 
quasi-public works ; ^ but by express provision the 
city of Grand Rapids may issue bonds for the im- 
provement of the navigation of Grand River. 

In 1900 the agitation for increased taxation of 
steam railroads found expression in an amendment 
giving to the legislature power to provide for the 
assessment of property of corporations at its true 
cash value by a state board of assessors, in place of a 
specific tax on gross earnings. The legislature is 
required to provide a uniform rule of taxation for 
property assessed by such board, and the rate shall 
be the average rate levied upon other property upon 
which ad valorem taxes are assessed for state and 
municipal purposes. Also the legislature is required 
to provide for an equalization of all taxable prop- 
erty by a state board at least once in five years. 
These amendments were supplemented by legisla- 

1 Cf. p. 293. See also Quarterli/ Journal of Economics, June 
and October, 1900: articles on "Municipal Ownership of Street 
Railways in Detroit." 



THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 395 

tion providing for the repeal of the special charters 
held by certain railway corporations, and fixing a 
means whereby those railways might recover 
damages (if any) from the State by reason of such 
repeal. These changes have been far-reaching in 
their effects, and the measure of advantages gained 
must await the decisions of the courts as to the 
many questions now in litigation. The first result 
has been to add to the rolls over two hundred 
million dollars worth of property, an increase of 
about one eighth in taxable property of the State. 
The outbreak of the Spanish war, in April, 
1898, found Michigan ready to respond to the 
call to arras. With great promptness five regi- 
ments were put into the field ; and two of them 
were among the first to disembark on Cuban 
soil. If the part assigned to the Michigan sol- 
diers against Fort Aguadores by the commanding 
general, William R. Shafter (himself a native of 
Michigan), was such as to create a doubt in the 
general mind as to the value of those services, at 
least the regiments carried out the letter of their 
instructions by holding the enemy in check while 
more important operations were being conducted 
at Santiago. At sea, the cruise of the Michigan 
naval brigade on the Yosemite brought the vol- 
unteers from the State into the position of main- 
taining alone for several days the blockade of San 
Juan ; of driving ashore a Spanish transport, and 
repulsing the Spanish naval vessel Isabel II and 



396 MICHIGAN. 

two gunboats. Although laurels were few for the 
infantry, there was full measure of suffering from 
the hardships of a tropical campaign. The Sec- 
retary of War, during the war portion of the 
McKinley administration, was Russell A. Alger, 
the occasion of whose retirement from the Cabi- 
net was the subject of much controversy through- 
out the country. 

The great diversity of natural resources pos- 
sessed by the State is constantly giving rise to 
new enterprises. The recent discovery of coal in 
the Saginaw valley has resulted in an annual pro- 
duction of a million tons of low grade bituminous 
coal ; extensive beds of marl have led to the con- 
struction of manufactories of cement ; the abun- 
dant hard woods have enabled Grand Rapids to 
become the first city in the country in the pro- 
duction of furniture, the annual market being at- 
tended by buyers from every section of the Union ; 
the soil in various localities being well adapted to 
the production of the sugar-beet, great sugar fac- 
tories have been constructed, and the best located 
among them have passed into the control of the 
Sugar Trust; the salt deposits along the Detroit 
River have led to the investment of many millions 
of dollars in plants for the production of soda-ash, 
bleaching powder, and kindred products ; while 
the celery of Kalamazoo and the peach crop of 
western Michigan find ready market, with Chicago 
as the chief point of distribution. Meantime ship- 



PLEASURE RESORTS. 397 

building and the manufacture of freight cars are 
among the leading industries of the State. 

The census of 1900 shows Michigan ninth 
among the States in population, in amount of 
capital employed in manufactures, and in the 
production of flour ; second in lumber, copper, and 
iron ore ; sixth in the manufacture of agricultural 
implements and chemicals, and seventh in railway 
cars ; eighth in the production of cheese and of 
wood-pulp and paper ; tenth in manufactures gen- 
erally ; and thirteenth in agriculture. 

The extreme beauty of Michigan's sixteen hun- 
dred miles of coast line, of the five thousand inland 
lakes and the numerous islands ; the salubrious air 
of the Great Lakes, and the many streams well 
stocked with gamy trout, have made the State 
the resort of thousands of summer pleasure-seekers 
and sportsmen ; while in winter the northern 
woods still tempt the deer-shooter. The "fairy 
island " of Mackinaw, with its numerous hotels 
and villas, adds to marvelous beauty an historic 
interest running back to remotest times. Old 
Fort Mackinaw, built by the British Colonel 
Sinclair in the times of Haldimand, together with 
the American Fur Company post, recall the last 
days of the English occupation, the frontier strug- 
gles of the War of 1812, and the early days of 
American enterprise. In 1894, the government, 
desiring to concentrate the army posts, threatened 
to sell its wide possessions on Mackinaw Island ; 



398 MICHIGAN. 

but through the interposition of Senator McMil- 
lan, Fort Mackinaw, with its park-like dependen- 
cies and its famous natural beauties, was trans- 
ferred to the State, and is preserved as a park for 
visitors from all over the land. From Traverse 
Bay southward even to Berrien County, the 
shore of Lake Michigan is lined with populous 
summer cities, as are also the shores of Lake Huron 
from Saginaw Bay to Port Huron and thence to 
Lake Erie. Among the marshes of St. Clair Flats 
a western Venice has built itself, so that for miles 
along the winding ship-channel a succession of cot- 
tages and club-houses, rising from the waters, ofEers 
rest to the people of the near-by city of Detroit. 
At Mount Clemens, where in Revolutionary 
days fugitives from the Moravian missions of the 
Ohio country found protection under the British 
commandant DePeyster, sulphur springs, famed 
throughout the world, draw thousands to the " Bath 
City ; " and healing waters at other points are 
only less well known. Lines of fast steamers fur- 
nished luxuriously, connect the upper and lower 
lake cities, offering the summer traveler an unin- 
terrupted journey of from seven to ten days. 

In June, 1886, the completion of a half century 
of statehood was celebrated by the people of Mich- 
igan, who assembled at Lansing as at a family 
gathering to exchange felicitations over fifty well 
spent years. The lavish gifts of nature, the pro- 
gress in education and philanthropy, the changes 



SEMI-CENTENNIALS. 399 

that the pioneers wrought — such were the themes 
of the orators. Many of the speakers had seen all 
and had been part of many of the events they 
chronicled. Most happy was the summing up by 
Judge Cooley : — 

What more can be said in praise of the State, than 
that it has more than kept pace with the astounding 
growth of the country, and more than kept good the 
wonderful promise of its earlier years ? Justly and with 
emphasis of proud satisfaction may its citizens exclaim, 
as they welcome the stranger to our hospitable board 
to-day : " Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam, circumspice." 
Its beauty, its riches, its attractions are everywhere. But 
not in its wealth, in its beauty, in its numbers does the 
State chiefly pride itself, so much as in its religious and 
charitable institutions and its complete system of public 
education ; and what the people have done and are doing 
through these and by these, must sufficiently attest : first 
and foremost the aim of the State has always been to pre- 
pare its youth to act well their part in the great drama 
of life and in its incidental trials and rivalries. If that 
aim is accomplished, the State may well be content, for 
material success will abundantly follow. 

In 1887 the University of Michigan received 
the congratulations of sister institutions of learn- 
ing on the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. 
During the past thirty-three years, the fortunes of 
the University have been entrusted to James Bur- 
rill Angell, a native of Rhode Island, a man of 
sound and elegant scholarship, of infinite tact, and 



400 MICHIGAN. 

of wide knowledge of men and life. Twice he has 
been called into the service of the nation to carry 
on delicate negotiations with the Chinese and the 
Turkish empires ; and the State has ever taken a 
peculiar pride in the honors bestowed upon a citi- 
zen who has won at home so much admiration and 
respect. On the occasion of the anniversary cele- 
bration the delegate speakers representing other 
colleges made manifest the fact that while the 
University, through its officers and professors, had 
ever been an integral part of the great republic of 
letters, at the same time the institution had been 
signally successful in maintaining the position, as 
Professor Bryce has expressed it, " of metropolitan 
university for the Northwestern States." Akin 
to the State University is the Normal College, 
with its centre at Ypsilanti and its branches at Mt. 
Pleasant, Marquette, and Kalamazoo; the Agri- 
cultural College, well equipped and well endowed ; 
and the College of Mines, located in the heart of 
the Copper country at Houghton. Besides these 
institutions, the Hollanders have Hope College at 
Holland ; the Presbyterians support a college at 
Alma, the Baptists one at Kalamazoo, the Free 
Baptists one at Hillsdale, the Methodists one at 
Albion, the Congregationalists one at Olivet and 
another at Benzonia, the Seventh-Day Adventists 
one at Battle Creek, and the Roman Catholics one 
at Detroit, each institution being named for the 
city in which it is located. 



NOTABLE ANNIVERSARIES. 401 

A third notable anniversary took place in De- 
troit in June, 1901, when in a series of pageants 
the two hundredth anniversary of the landing of 
Cadillac was celebrated in the streets and on the 
river. Then the descendants of the old French 
families came forward, and in a brilliant panto- 
mime revived the sights and scenes of two centu- 
ries ago, when, outwardly at least, life presented 
a gayer aspect than it wears to-day. 

On July 6, 1904, the anniversary of the found- 
ation of the Republican party was celebrated under 
the oaks in the city of Jackson, where the first 
state convention that adopted the name " Repub- 
lican " had been held fifty years before. During 
the half-century every electoral vote of Michigan 
has been given to the nominees of that party, save 
in 1892, when the election was held under the 
so-called Miner Law, passed by a Democratic legis- 
lature, whereby electors were chosen by congres- 
sional districts instead of by the State at large. 
The popular vote showed a plurality of over twenty 
thousand for Harrison ; but five out of the fourteen 
electors returned were Democrats. The law was 
repealed by the succeeding legislature. 

In September, 1904, the war-cry of the War of 
1812, " Remember the River Raisin," found re- 
newed expression in the unveiling of a monument 
erected by the State to the memory of the Ken- 
tucky soldiers who perished in that massacre.^ 

1 Cf. pp. 182-184. 
26 



402 MICHIGAN. 

With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, a 
stream of immigration from New England and 
New York began to flow to Michigan ; and since 
that day the laws and institutions of the State 
have been patterned largely after those of the 
parent States. No foreign element, however pre- 
dominant in a particular section, has had more 
than a local influence. The descendants of these 
early settlers congratulate themselves that their 
lines have fallen in pleasant places. The records 
of French explorers, the relations of the early 
missionaries, the stubborn resistance ofiiered by 
the British to Pontiac, wiliest of savage foes, all 
give a background of historic romance ; the dis- 
covery and development of the natural resources 
afford tales of adventure and achievement, while 
the great beauty of the inland seas and their pic- 
turesque shores have a charm not without decided 
influence upon the lives of the people. If Michi- 
gan has produced no Presidents, and no statesmen 
of the first rank, at least no national crisis has 
found the State wanting either in decision or in 
energy. No people have more sincerely adopted 
or more fully exemplified in their lives the golden 
words of the immortal Ordinance of 1787 : " Re- 
ligion, morality, and knowledge being necessary 
to good government and the happiness of man- 
kind, schools and the means of education shall for- 
ever be encouraged." 



INDEX 



INDEX. 



Abbot, Governor, 91. 

Academies, 317. 

Adams, John Quincy, 219, 355. 

Adrian, 239. 

Aigrement, 29, 32. 

Alger, Russell A., 390, 391, 39G. 

American Fur Company, 192, 397. 

Amherst, General, 40, 41, 75. 

Angell, James Burrill, 399, 400. 

Ann Arbor, 239, 317. 

Astor, John Jacob, 191. 

Bagley, John J., 391. 

Baldwin, Henry P., 390, 391. 

Barry, John S., 294, 298. 

Bates, Judge, 150. 

Beauharnais, 35, 36. 

Begole, Josiah W., 391, 392. 

Bellestre, 43. 

Bingham, Kinsley S., 305. 

Bird, Captain, 102. 

Black Hawk War, 212. 

Blair, Austin, 305, 339. 

Bliss, Aaron T., 392. 

Boundary controversy, 214 el seq. 

Bradstreet, General, 63, 68. 

Brandy, trade in, 31-33, 51, 52. 

Brant, Joseph, lOti-109, 113, llfi, 117. 

British posts, detention of, 107, 114, 

115,118. 
Brock, General, 174, 175, 177. 
Buchanan, President, 339. 
Burro w.s, Julius C, 390. 
Burt, William A., 376. 

Cadillac, La Motte, 14, 17-34, 401. 

Cahokia, 96. 

Calumet an4 Hecla mine, .375. 

Campbell, Major, 60. 

Canada, colonization of, 5; govern- 
ment of, 8-10, 2C; surrender to the 
British, 40-44; despotic government 
of, 46, 66-78. 

Cfanals and locks, first a sluiceway, 
380; Congress delays construction, 
381; constructive problems, 381, 
382 ; canal property valuable, 382; 
Weitzel lock, 382; Poe lock, 382; 



supplementary water ways, 383, 384; 
power canals, 385. 

Carleton, Sir Guy, 75, 76, 85, 110, 112, 
114. 

Cartier, Jaqnes, 2. 

Cass, Lewis, Colonel, 167, 172, 175; 
made military governor, 187; ap- 
pointed civil governor, 189 ; treaties 
with Indians, 194; visits the upper 
Lakes, 195, 196 ; his bravery, 196 ; 
his democratic tendencies, 201, 205, 
206; organizes counties, 201 ; be- 
comes secretary of war, 203 ; his 
habits, 204 ; favors general educa- 
tion, 310, 314; obtains grant to Uni- 
versity, 312 ; Nicholson letter of, 
334; favors compromise of 1850, 
335 ; speaks for the Union, 342 ; ex- 
amines Ontonagon copper rock, 373, 
374 ; statue erected, 387. 

Catholepistemiad, 310. 

Census of 1900, 397. 

Champlain, Samuel de, 3. 

Chandler, Elizabeth Margaret, 243. 

Chandler, Zachariah, 335, 340, 387, 
388. 

Charlevoix, 35. 

Charter contracts, 300. 

Chicago, abandoned in 1812, 181. 

Cholera in 183'2-34, 212. 

Cincinnati, 111. 

Civil war, 1861-1865, 330-343. 

Clarke, George Rogers, 93-104. 

Clay, Henry, 165, 166. 

Colbert, 109. 

Coles, Edward, 138, 139 

Colonization, European, 1 ; French, 5. 

Company of the Colony of Canada, 26. 

Company of the Himdred Associates, 
6,7. 

Conger, Omar D., 390. 

Congress of Nations, 16. 

Constitution of the State of 1835, 225 ; 
of 18.50, 299-304 ; amendments of, 
304, 392-395. 

Constitutions, American, peculiar ex- 
cellence of, 345 ; must necessarily 
change, 347. 



406 



INDEX. 



Conventions, state, 223, 249 ; " frost- 
bitten," 224. 

Copper mines, 16, 20, 78, 364 ; prehis- 
toric workings, 373 ; first ore ship- 
ment, 374 ; Ontonagon region, 374 ; 
Calumet and Hecla, 375 ; present 
development, 376 ; Lake Superior 
mines, 380. 

Corporate charters, 300. 

Couretirs de bois, 21, 81, 232. 

Craig, Governor-General, 166. 

Crapo, Henry H., 292, 390. 

Crary, Lsaac E., 220, 32U, 321. 

Crittenden, John J., 337. 

Croghan, George, 63. 

Croswell, Charles M., 391. 

Currency, early, 254 et seq. ; cut, 257 ; 
national, 357-361 ; wild-cat, 267-278. 

Dablon, 11, 12. 

Dalzell, Captain, 61. 

Dane, Nathan, 167. 

Dearborn, Fort, 181. 

Dearborn, General, 174. 

Defiance, Fort, 182. 

Dejean, Judge, 74, 75, 98-100. 

De la Barre, 22. 

Delegate in Congress, William Wood- 
bridge, 199; Solomon Sibley, 1119; 
Gabriel Richard, 199 ; Austin E. 
Wing, 200. 

Denonville, 22. 

De Peyster, Captain, 91, 101, 102. 

Detroit, importance of, 14, 15 ; found- 
ing of, 16-39 ; siege of, by Pontiac, 
40-65 ; military government of, 66- 
78; illegal grants at, 68-70; impor- 
tance of, in the Revolution, 85-103; 
surrender to the United States, 
118 ; incorporation of, 141 ; destruc- 
tion of, by fire, 1.52 ; Woodward, 
plan of, 154 ; surrender of, by Hull, 
l75 ; Colonel Proctor, governor of, 
ISO ; evacuated by Proctor, 187 ; 
condition in 1837, 237 ; capital re- 
moved from, 296 ; citizens build 
peninsula railroad, 384. 

Detroit B.ank, 155, 257, 2,">8. 

Detroit Young Men's Society, 239. 

Dickinson, Don M., 390. 

DoUier, 16. 

Dongan, Governor, 22. 

Dubuisson, 34. 

Du Lhut, 15. 

Du Monts, 3. 

Dunmore, Governor, 88. 

Education, state, review of, 306-329 ; 
support of, 372 ; university, colleges, 
and normal schools, 399, 400. 

Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad, 279. 

Erie Canal, 203. 



Explorations, early, 1, 12, 16. 

Federal relations in 1837, review of, 
226 ; after the Civil War. 244-371. 

Felch, Alpheus, 296. 

Findlay, Colonel, 167. 

Fort Stanwix treaty, 108, 111. 

Forts, Dearborn, 181 ; Defiance, 182 ; 
Le Bceuf, 56, 60; Meigs, 186; Mi- 
ami, 43, 56, 60, 115-117; Niagara, 
56, 60, 62, 03 ; Ouatanon, 43, 56, 60 ; 
Pitt, 56, 60; Pontchartrain, 19,29; 
Sandusky, 56, 60 ; Stephenson, 186 ; 
St. Joseph on St. Clair River, 15 ; 
St. Joseph on Lake Michigan, 56, 
60 ; Venango, 56, 00. 

Fox, Cliarles James, 84. 

Free schools, 303-329. 

French farms, 190, 233. 

Freuchtown massacre, 182-184. 

Froutenac, Count, 9, 10. 

Fur trade, American, 4, 22, 23, 29, 
191. 

Gallin^e, 16, 17. 
Gallissoniere, 37. 
General Banking Law, 261, 262, 267, 

275. 
Gilpin, Henry D., 212. 
Girty, Simon, George, and James, 92. 
Gladwin, Major, 57. 
Grand Council at Huron Village, 109. 
Greenly, William L., 296. 
Greenville, Treaty of, 117. 
Griffin, Judge, 150. 

Haldimand, Sir Frederick, 107, 397. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 347-349, 351. 

Hamilton, Governor, 75, 85, 90. 

Harmar, General, 112. 

Harrison, William H., governor, 135; 
general, 182, 186. 

Holland Colony, 297. 

Horner, John S., 221. 

Houghton, Dr. Douglass, surveys cop- 
per region, 374 ; his party finds iron, 
376. 

Hulbert, Edwin, 375. 

Hull, William, 148-163. 

Hundred Associates, 6, 7. 

Hurons, 4. 

Illinois, attempt to legalize slavery in, 
137-139. 

Immigration to Michigan, 197, 202, 
203, 296, 402. 

Indian affairs, bad management of, 
47-54. 

Indian massacres in Northwest Ter- 
ritory, 111, 112. 

Indian trade, rivalry for, 4, 22, 23, 
29 ; pathway of, to Quebec, 16. 



INDEX. 



407 



Indian treaties, how obtained, 159, 

161'. 
Indiana, attempts to legalize slavery 

in, 133-130. 
Indians, conversion of, 20, 21, 23, 38, 

142-141; use of. in the Revolution, 

8G-94. 
Industrial development, 372-380, 385- 

387, 396, 397. 
Industries, household, 234. 
Internal improvements, 279-293, 296, 

384, 385. 
Iron mines, 364, 367 ; discovered, 370, 

377; development, 377-379; Lake 

Superior mines, 380. 
Iroquois, 4, 10, 36, 106, 108, 109. 

Jackson, President, 207, 218-220, 222. 

Jay's Treaty, 118, 136. 

Jefferson, Tliomas, 125, 126, 130, 147 ; 

constitutional views of, 347-349, 

351,371. 
Jerome, David H., 391. 
Jesuits, 4, 5, 10, 25, 27, 28. 
Johnson, Sir John, 110, 112. 
Johnson, Sir William, 43, 53, 62-64, 

88 
Joliet, 12, 13, 373. 
Joquea, 10. 
Jonquiere, 37. 
Judicial officers, election of, 30O. 

Kaskaskia, capture of, 95, 96. 
Kentucky settlements, attacks on, 

92-94. 
King, Rufus, 127. 

La Foret, 135. 

Lamothe, 99, 100. 

La Motte Cadillac, 14, 17-34, 39, 401. 

Land claims, early, about Detroit, 

145. 
Land speculations, 255. 
Langlade, Charles de, 91. 
Lansing, capital removed to, 296. 
La Roche, 3. 
La Salle, 15-17. 
Lawyers, early, 248. 
Le Baye, 5<;, 63. 
Le Boeuf, Fort, 56, 60. 
Legal-tender acts, 360. 
Liberty, English, 45, 46. 
License laws, 300, 301, 304. 
Lincoln, President, 336, 356. 
Liquor traffic, 144. See Trade, Indian. 
Livingston, Robert, 24. 
Loan, state, for internalimprovement, 

283. 
Logan, Chief, 88. 
Lothrop, George Van Ness, 390. 
Lucas, Governor. 218. 
Luce, Cyrus G., 391, 392. 



Lumber, protection for, 365, 366 ; an- 
nual production, 386, 387. 
Lyon, Lucius, 220. 

Mackinaw, 102, 118, 143, 170. 

Maiden, evacuated by Proctoi, 187. 

Marest, 14, 29. 

Marietta, 111. 

Marquette, Jaques, 4, 10-13 ; founds 
St. Ignatius, 12 ; death of, 13. 

Marshall, village, 239. 

Marshall, Chief Justice, 358. 

Mason, John T., appointed territorial 
secretary, 207. 

Mason, Stevens T., territorial secre- 
tary, 208 ; acting governor, 208, 220; 
not of age when appointed, 208-210 ; 
elected governor of State, 219 ; pro- 
tests against act of admission, 224, 
225 ; on banking, 264-266, 269, 272, 
276 ; on internal improvements, 
281-285. 

Massacre of Frenchtovni, 183, 184. 

Massacre, Raisin River, monument to 
Kentucky soldiers in, 401. 

McArthur, Duncan, 167, 175, 312. 

McClelland, Robert, 304. 

McDougall, Lieutenant, 60. 

McMillan, James, manufacturer and 
philantliropist, 388, 389; notable 
service in Congress, 389, 390 ; secures 
Fort Mackinaw reservation for park, 
398 

Meigs, Fort, 186. 

Miami, Fort, 43, 56, 60, 115-117. 

Michigan Territory, organized, 140 ; 
ignorance concerning, 192, 193. 

Michigan University, 310-329. 

Michihmackinac, 11, 14, 18, 27, 30. 
38, 78 ; mission at, 12, 13, 15, 28 
surrender to the British, 43, 44 
capture by the Indians, 60, 61 ; be- 
comes Mackinaw, 102. 

Militia in Spanish War, 395, 396. 

Miller, Colonel, 174. 

" Miner " law, 401. 

Money, early, 254-278, 357-361. 

Monopoly in banking, 261, 269, 275, 

Monquagon, fight at, 174. 

Monroe, 239. 

Montcalm, 28. 

Monteith, John, 200, 309, 315. 

Montreal, 3, 40. 

Moravian town, fight at, 187. 

Mormon colony, 297. 

Morris Canal and Banking Company, 
286. 

Mundy, Edward, 219. 

Murraj', General, 75. 

National banks, 357, 358. 
Negro riot, 213. 



408 



INDEX. 



Newspapers, early, 202. 

Niagara, Fort, 56, 60, 62, 03. 

Northwest Territory, conquest of, 79- 
104; reluctant surrender of, 105, 
119 ; land controversy concerning, 
105, 120-125; government for. 111, 
125. 

Norvel, John, 220. 

Nouvel, 12. 

Office-holders, federal, 370. 

Offices as spoils, 207. 

Ohio, boundary controversy with, 214 

et seq. ; currency from, 259, 200. 
Ordinance of 1787, 125, 127-138, 211. 
Ouatanon, Fort, 43, 56-GO. 

Palmer, Thomas W., 390. 

Parsons, Andrew, 305. 

Patriot war, 253. 

Pawnee slaves, 131. 

Peace conference of 18G0, 337, 341. 

People of the State iu 1837, 232 et seq. 

Perry's victory, 18G. 

Pierce, John D., 318, 321. 

Pingree, Hazen S., 392. 

Pitt, Fort, 56, CO. 

Pontchartrain, 18, 27, 28, 30. 

Pontchartrain, Fort, 19, 29. 

Pontiac, chief, 40-66. 

Pontiac, village, 239. 

Population of Territory, 203, 213. 

Population of State, 397. 

Porter, George B., 210, 212. 

Presque Isle, Fort, 56-60. 

Prevost, Sir George, 160, 174. 

Printing-press, the first, 202. 

Proctor, Colonel, 180-187. 

Public lands in market, 195. 

Quakers, 247, 248. 

Quebec founded, 3; captured, 40, 45. 

Quebec Act, 83, 85 ; boundaries of, 103. 

Radicalism in 1849, 298. 

Radisson, Pierre Esprit, 375. 

Railroads, early, 249; sale of state, 
289-291 ; voting aid to, 292, 293 ; 
peninsula extension, 384; increased 
taxation. 394, 395. 

Randolpli, John. 134, 162-166. 

Ransom, Epaphroditus, 296. 

Rayrabaiilt, 10. 

Reconstruction of States, 362. 

Relief measures, 270, 274, 275. , 

Religion, early, 245, 248. 

Repentigny, Chevalier de, 38. 

Republican party, dominant power, 
392; fiftieth anniversary of founda- 
tion, 401. 

Resorts, health and pleasure, 397, 398. 

Rich, John T., 392. 



Richard, Father Gabriel, 141, 199, 200, 
309 ; delegate in Congress, 199 ; 
notes of, for St. Anne, 259. 

River Raisin massacre, 182-184, 401. 

Rivers and harbors, 368. 

Roads, territorial, 197, 198. 

Roberval, 2. 

Rocheblave, 91. 

Rogers, Major Robert, 41, 78. 

Ruin of Indian trade, 144. 

Safety fiuid for banks, 261. 

St. Anne's Church, 199, 259. 

St. Clair, General, 110-113 ; governor. 
130, 151, 152. 

St. Ignatius mission, 12. 

St. Joseph, Fort, on St. Clair River, 
15 ; on Lake Michigan, 56, GO. 

Salaries, state, 302. 

Salt manufacture, 365, 366, 396. 

Sandusky, Fort, 56, 60. 

Sastaretsi, Chief, 33, 34. 

Sault St. Marie, 10, 15, 38, 63, 144. 

Schools, public, 307, 329 ; endowment 
for, 321. 

Schuyler, General, 89. 

Secession, 336. 

Semi-Centennial of statehood, 398, 399. 

Shafter, General William R., 395. 

Sibley, Solomon, 199. 

Simcoe, Governor, 114, 117. 

Six Nations, 4, 10, 36, 106, 108, 109. 

Slavery, 129, 130, 131,332-343, 356. 

Spanish war, militia in, 395, 396. 

Speculative mania, 255, 265, 267, 274, 
289. 

Sports, early, 250-252. 

Standard Oil Co., 378, 379. 

State and Union in 1837, 226-231 ; 
after the Civil War, 344-371. 

State Agricultural College, 327, 400. 

State credit, not to be loaned, 302. 

State currency, taxed out of existence, 
359. 

State debt, for internal improvements, 
283-302 ; sinking fmid for, 301 ; lim- 
itation upon, 301. 

State economy, 303. 

State government, right to, under or- 
dinance of 1787, 211, 213, 220; peti- 
tion for, 213 ; established, 219, 220, 
2.32 ; recognized by Congress, 224. 

State Normal School, 327, 400. 

State products in 1880, 364 ; in 1900, 
.397. 

State railroads, sale of, 289-291, 296. 

State School for Dependent Children, 
327. 

State .script, 287, 288. 

Steamboat, first, 202. 

Stephenson, Fort, 18C. 

Steuben, Baron, 107. 



INDEX. 



409 



Stockbridge, frauds B., 3'JO. 
Strang, John J., •2i)7, 298. 
Suspension of specie payments, 263- 
267. 

Talon, Intendant, 373. 

Tappan, Henry P., 341. 

Taxation, federal, 363. 

Tecuniseh, chief, 160-162 ; his re- 
proach of Proctor, 186 ; his death, 
187. 

Tecumseh, town, 239, 247. 

Temperance laws, 300, 304. 

Territorial government, vote on 
changing, 198 ; changes made, 200, 
201. 

Thompson, O. C, 317. 

Thurlow, Lord, 84. 

Toledo war, 218. 

Tontagini, chief, 313. 

Tonty, 19. 

Trade, Indian, rivalry for, 4 ; monopo- 
lies in, 4-8, 21, 26 ; intermeddling 
with, 73. 

Ti-aders, Indian, 21, 50-53, 71, 87. 

Turnbull, Captain, 74. 

Union and State in 1837, 226-231 ; 
since the Civil War, 344-371. 



University of Michigan, 310-339 ; in- 
come, 372 ; semi-centennial, 399, 
400. 

Van Home's defeat, 173. 
Van Raalte, Albertus C, 297. 
Vaudreuil, 29, 40, 44. 
Venango, Fort, 56, 60. 
Vincennes, 96-98. 
Voltaire, 45. 
Voyageurs, 45, 81. 

War of 1812, 163. 

Washington, George, 37, 115. 

Water highways, 368, 369 (see also 
canals and locks). 

Wayne, General, 115-119. 

Wild-cat banking, 267-278. 

Winans, Edwin B., 392. 

Winchester, General, 181-183. 

Wing, Austin E., 200. 

Wisner, Moses, 305, 339. 

Woodbridge, William, territorial sec- 
retary, 190 ; delegate in Congress, 
199 ; acting governor, 205 ; removed 
as judge, 210 ; governor of State, 
274. 

Woodward, Judge, 136, 149, 180, 258. 

Wool in Michigan, 364, 367. 



(3Cf)e iRitacr^itiE press 

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This volume in the Commonwealths Series covers more 
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